| | The issue of the [[Falsifiability of evolution|falsifiability of the evolutionary position]] is a very important issue and although offering a poor cure to the problem that Karl Popper described, committed evolutionists Louis Charles Birch and [[Paul Ehrlich|Paul R. Ehrlich]] stated in the journal ''[[Nature]]'': | | The issue of the [[Falsifiability of evolution|falsifiability of the evolutionary position]] is a very important issue and although offering a poor cure to the problem that Karl Popper described, committed evolutionists Louis Charles Birch and [[Paul Ehrlich|Paul R. Ehrlich]] stated in the journal ''[[Nature]]'': |
| − | {{cquote|Our theory of evolution has become, as Popper described, one which cannot be refuted by any possible observations. Every conceivable observation can be fitted into it. It is thus outside of empirical science but not necessarily false. No one can think of ways in which to test it. Ideas, either without basis or based on a few laboratory experiments carried out in extremely simplified systems, have become part of an evolutionary dogma accepted by most of us as part of our training. The cure seems to us not to be a discarding of the modern synthesis of evolutionary theory, but more skepticism about many of its tenets.<ref>L.C. Birch and P.R. Ehrlich, Nature, vol. 214 (1967), p. 349</ref>}} | + | {{cquote|Our theory of evolution has become, as Popper described, one which cannot be refuted by any possible observations. Every conceivable observation can be fitted into it. It is thus outside of empirical science but not necessarily false. No one can think of ways in which to test it. Ideas, either without basis or based on a few laboratory experiments carried out in extremely simplified systems, have become part of an evolutionary dogma accepted by most of us as part of our training. The cure seems to us not to be a discarding of the modern synthesis of evolutionary theory, but more skepticism about many of its tenets.<ref>Birch, L. C. and Ehrlich, P. R. (1967), ''Nature'', v. 214, p. 349.</ref>}} |