Dr. Cornelius Hunter answers the question here. (H/T ECM)
Here’s the criterion specified by naturalists to make an explanation scientific:
…in order to qualify as legitimate science a theory must distinguish between different outcomes. Naturalism is needed because otherwise each outcome is equally probable and the theory is not true science.
Deciding what does and does not qualify as legitimate science is notoriously difficult. There seem to be exceptions to every rule. But perhaps Felsenstein’s criterion is reasonable. Shouldn’t a scientific theory say at least something about the probabilities of what we might observe in the data?
Does Darwinism satisfy the criterion? Hunter argues that it does not.
Whatever we find in biology, evolutionists say it must have evolved. Their predictions and expectations are often falsified and they have to patch their theory repeatedly. And there is no distinction between a new, fantastic design and a repeated design–both are equiprobable under evolution.
If a new, fantastic design appears such as the trilobite eye, then evolutionists ascribe it to natural selection. If similar designs are found in different species, then it is ascribed to common descent. If later cousin species are found to lack the design, then common descent can be dropped as an explanation and the design can be said to have evolved independently. The evolutionary explanation is extremely flexible.
If distinguishing between outcomes is the hallmark of true science, then evolution is the theory that doesn’t qualify.
Read the whole thing!
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