Re: Evolution: Facts, Fallacies, Crisis

Lloyd Eby (leby@nova.umuc.edu)
Sat, 13 Dec 1997 16:44:57 -0500 (EST)

On Sat, 13 Dec 1997, Walter J Hicks wrote:

(snip)

> O.K., but if you prove something to be true, then it is a fact not a
> theory. Some evolution may be fact but Darwin's theory is just a theory.
>
> I would have thought that you would be familiar with Popper's
> "falsifiablity" notions. I'm not too great at explaining philosophy. A
> "soundbite" of information may be seen at:

I'm quite familiar with Popper's views on falsifiability. (My Ph.D.
dissertation was entitled: "Objective Knowledge and the Knowing Subject:
The Popper-Kuhn Debate.") I think the situation with theory-proposal and
theory-choice is somewhat diØfferent from what Popper thought. The famous
experiment, where light was shown to be bent when it passes a massive
object (e.g. the sun), in some sense "proved" Einstein's theory just as
much as it falsified Newton's.

Lloyd Eby