# Is the theory of evolution "testable"?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-theory-of-evolution-testable/319752
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [September 2, 2005, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-theory-of-evolution-testable/319752 "2005-09-02T16:28:39Z")
**Posts on this page:** 16
**Page:** 4
### Author:  [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2014, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-theory-of-evolution-testable/319752/61 "2014-01-29T15:33:08Z")
If you consider that the original “lab” that “created” life (sorry, where life-as-we-know-it first happened) was the surface of the planet, or at least the sea surface - or even the coastline areas - and there was a billion years or so of opportunity for this to happen - it’s no surprise if a flask for a few weeks does not come close to replicating the result. The interesting thing about the Miller experiments is that he showed fairly complex molecules could occur in short order in roughly analogous conditions… the implication is that given the greater volume and time, even more complex results could happen.
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### Author:  [@Learjeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Learjeff)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2014, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-theory-of-evolution-testable/319752/62 "2014-01-29T16:01:38Z")
> [@Mijin](#):
>
> And, importantly, you can form models and make predictions in observational science.
Bingo. The theory of evolution made an impressive number of predictions of things that were not yet observed but later found in the fossil record. We can definitely make “predictions” of things we haven’t already observed.
> [@Colibri](#):
>
> However, detailed studies in the Galapagos have shown that [significant changes in beak size can take place in only a few years](http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060710/full/news060710-11.html) given the right conditions.
The finches are a great example of natural selection, but probably not a good example of genetic novelty. They evolve so quickly, it’s much more likely that the genes for a wide variety of beak properties already exist, and it’s their expression that changes (whether by mutations of control genes or epigenetics I wouldn’t have a clue.) There might be some interesting ways of testing this.
> [@njtt](#):
>
> Unfortunately “basic scientific method” (or what most people who think there is such a thing take it to be) is a very poor characterization of how science is actually done, especially conceptually innovative science, such as Darwin’s discovery of evolution by differentiation, and Newton’s discovery of gravity.
Kuhn’s “Structure of Scientific Revolutions” is a much better characterization, and a fascinating read for anyone who’s interested in the history and philosophy of science.
> [@](#):
>
> Unfortunately the difference between fact and theory _is_ very obscure
Yes, and twhitt’s point is that ID and creationism proponents exploit this to attack evolution, as I’m sure you know.
> [@kanicbird](#):
>
> How would you set up a repeatable/confirm-able test then that would not involve man(kind) influencing evolution through his/her intelligence and in doing so proving intelligent design as fact?
For one, see above: make predictions about things that will be found in the geological record. Obviously, this isn’t the kind of test you can just “perform” because you have to wait for the evidence to appear.
In any case, TalkOrigins has a good paper covering [predictions](http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA210.html) and another good synopsis of very specific [evidence](http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/). From the predictions:
> [@](#):
>
> Darwin predicted, based on homologies with African apes, that human ancestors arose in Africa. That prediction has been supported by fossil and genetic evidence (Ingman et al. 2000).
> • Theory predicted that organisms in heterogeneous and rapidly changing environments should have higher mutation rates. This has been found in the case of bacteria infecting the lungs of chronic cystic fibrosis patients (Oliver et al. 2000).
> • Predator-prey dynamics are altered in predictable ways by evolution of the prey (Yoshida et al. 2003).
> • Ernst Mayr predicted in 1954 that speciation should be accompanied with faster genetic evolution. A phylogenetic analysis has supported this prediction (Webster et al. 2003).
> • Several authors predicted characteristics of the ancestor of craniates. On the basis of a detailed study, they found the fossil Haikouella “fit these predictions closely” (Mallatt and Chen 2003).
> • Evolution predicts that different sets of character data should still give the same phylogenetic trees. This has been confirmed informally myriad times and quantitatively, with different protein sequences, by Penny et al. (1982).
> • Insect wings evolved from gills, with an intermediate stage of skimming on the water surface. Since the primitive surface-skimming condition is widespread among stoneflies, J. H. Marden predicted that stoneflies would likely retain other primitive traits, too. This prediction led to the discovery in stoneflies of functional hemocyanin, used for oxygen transport in other arthropods but never before found in insects (Hagner-Holler et al. 2004; Marden 2005).
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### Author:  [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2014, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-theory-of-evolution-testable/319752/63 "2014-01-29T16:09:30Z")
> [@Xema](#):
>
> ID does not hold that intelligent humans have guided evolution, and examples of human use of intelligence to design things are not evidence that supports ID.
I think you are confusing ID as theory and ID as fact, like such as evolution is both theory and fact. We observe evolution actually happening, so it is a fact, it is also a theory that this is how life evolved on earth since early times.
Likewise ID is a theory, or at least a conjecture of how early life evolved, but it is also a fact, we humans have guided evolution for our purposes. ID just needs a being capable enough to do this, which we are now at that stage, proving ID as fact.
In designing a scientific test for evolution, one that is repeatable, which is required in terms of the scientific method, we are by the test itself intelligently designing evolution. So I still state to prove evolution scientifically as fact you as a consequence also prove ID as fact.
If ID is fact, it opens the door that other intelligent beings, if they exist, are also capable of doing this guided evolution.
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### Author:  [@CC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CC)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2014, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-theory-of-evolution-testable/319752/64 "2014-01-29T16:41:00Z")
> [@kanicbird](#):
>
> Likewise ID is …also a fact, we humans have guided evolution for our purposes. ID just needs a being capable enough to do this, which we are now at that stage, proving ID as fact.
>
> In designing a scientific test for evolution, one that is repeatable, which is required in terms of the scientific method, we are by the test itself intelligently designing evolution. So I still state to prove evolution scientifically as fact you as a consequence also prove ID as fact.
>
> If ID is fact, it opens the door that other intelligent beings, if they exist, are also capable of doing this guided evolution.
You’re making a mess of the language as well as the concepts. Genetic engineering, selective breeding, etc. are ways humans manipulate heredity, but it’s not evolution. It may be done intelligently, and you might call it a form of design, but intelligent design doesn’t refer to those processes any more than evolution does. Evolution, a slow, natural shift over time is something completely different. And intelligent design is a theory - a claim - of how life has come to be on earth. Not a fact. No evidence. Not true. A bald assertion. You’re going to muddy up this thread big time with your statements.
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### Author:  [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2014, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-theory-of-evolution-testable/319752/65 "2014-01-29T16:41:09Z")
> [@kanicbird](#):
>
> I think you are confusing ID as theory and ID as fact, like such as evolution is both theory and fact. We observe evolution actually happening, so it is a fact, it is also a theory that this is how life evolved on earth since early times.
>
> Likewise ID is a theory, or at least a conjecture of how early life evolved, but it is also a fact, we humans have guided evolution for our purposes. ID just needs a being capable enough to do this, which we are now at that stage, proving ID as fact.
>
> In designing a scientific test for evolution, one that is repeatable, which is required in terms of the scientific method, we are by the test itself intelligently designing evolution. So I still state to prove evolution scientifically as fact you as a consequence also prove ID as fact.
>
> If ID is fact, it opens the door that other intelligent beings, if they exist, are also capable of doing this guided evolution.
Intelligent Design, as in the pseudoscientific idea supported by organizations like the Discovery Institute, is neither theory nor fact. It is not science. Evolution is both scientific theory and fact, or as close to fact as any scientific theory (like gravity and electricity/magnetism) is to fact.
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### Author:  [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2014, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-theory-of-evolution-testable/319752/66 "2014-01-29T16:46:31Z")
> [@kanicbird](#):
>
> Likewise ID is a theory, or at least a conjecture of how early life evolved, but it is also a fact, we humans have guided evolution for our purposes. ID just needs a being capable enough to do this, which we are now at that stage, proving ID as fact.
ID is not a scientific theory in that it is not testable. Repeating that it is doesn’t make it so.
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### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2014, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-theory-of-evolution-testable/319752/67 "2014-01-29T16:49:19Z")
> [@kanicbird](#):
>
> Would not the ‘testing’ of evolution (if successful) only serve to prove intelligent design (by man)?
**Moderating**
As others have noted, you are completely misusing the term “Intelligent Design” as it is commonly understood. In any case, debate about Intelligent Design would be better suited to Great Debates. If you wish to continue to discuss this idea, please open a new thread in that forum.
I would appreciate it if others would hold their responses to this idea for such a thread, if someone decides to start one.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
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### Author:  [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2014, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-theory-of-evolution-testable/319752/68 "2014-01-29T18:28:56Z")
> [@CC](#):
>
> You’re making a mess of the language as well as the concepts. Genetic engineering, selective breeding, etc. are ways humans manipulate heredity, but it’s not evolution. It may be done intelligently, and you might call it a form of design, but intelligent design doesn’t refer to those processes any more than evolution does. Evolution, a slow, natural shift over time is something completely different. And intelligent design is a theory - a claim - of how life has come to be on earth. Not a fact. No evidence. Not true. A bald assertion. You’re going to muddy up this thread big time with your statements.
OK accepted, but let’s just take this a bit further then as it’s own ‘theory’, to the origin of life. One of the accepted theories of the origins is Panspermia, one other conjecture is starseeding (by intelligent beings.
On earth right now we have human designed organisms that are released into our environment, free to go where they can. We have intelligently designed organisms already, it’s a fact, on earth and they or at least their influence will most likely persist most likely from this point forward on earth, as long as the earth supports life. If Panspermia is true then our genetically (ID created) organisms very well may make it to new words - so ID is possibly started by us already, if it didn’t exist on other worlds first.
One aspect of Panspermia is it is possible for life on one world to travel intersteller distances and find a new home on another. If life is common in at least our galaxy, is it not likely that intelligence evolved on other worlds and they also were able to genetically engineer life. If panspermia is the way that life propagates throughout the stars then there is a good chance, I would say, that we have some ID in our genetic makeup just by the probability that intellignet life would evolve elsewhere given the Panspermia theory is true.
Additionally there are some who subscribe to the star seeding conjecture, where earth was intentionally seeded by intelligent beings, this is closer to the ‘god did it’ theory, but doesn’t require a anything more then significantly advanced technology and does not require a god, though if you want to call those beings gods then you do answer the long standing question that Captain Kirk asked as to what a god needs with a starship.
So if this is the case then evolution would have a natural and ID component.
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### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2014, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-theory-of-evolution-testable/319752/69 "2014-01-29T18:38:48Z")
> [@kanicbird](#):
>
> If Panspermia is true then our genetically (ID created) organisms very well may make it to new words - so ID is possibly started by us already, if it didn’t exist on other worlds first.
>
> …
>
> So if this is the case then evolution would have a natural and ID component.
**Moderator Warning**
In the post immediately above this one, made more than a hour and a half before yours, I instructed you to drop the discussion of Intelligent Design in this thread. This is an Official Warning for failure to follow a moderator’s instructions. If you want to talk about Intelligent Design, or other forms of Creationism, take it to Great Debates.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
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### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2014, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-theory-of-evolution-testable/319752/70 "2014-01-29T20:01:35Z")
> [@Colibri](#):
>
> **Moderator Warning**
>
> In the post immediately above this one, made more than a hour and a half before yours, I instructed you to drop the discussion of Intelligent Design in this thread. This is an Official Warning for failure to follow a moderator’s instructions. If you want to talk about Intelligent Design, or other forms of Creationism, take it to Great Debates.
>
> Colibri
> General Questions Moderator
Since **kanicbird** has informed me he was composing his post for some time and didn’t see my instructions before posting, I’m rescinding this warning. However, the instructions to take debate about ID and Creationism to Great Debates still stand.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
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### Author:  [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2014, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-theory-of-evolution-testable/319752/71 "2014-01-29T23:33:11Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#):
>
> Evolution would predict that micro-organisms that breed multiple generations in an observable amount of time should be seen to adapt to changing conditions. This prediction has been tested in both laboratory and natural conditions and found to be true. Evolution has been tested.
Yes! That’s the[E. coli long-term evolution experiment](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli_long-term_evolution_experiment). Carl Zimmer has written a few articles about that. The [latest one](http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2014/01/06/evolution-hidden-in-plain-sight/)discusses the importance of gene doubling to the process that lead to a strain with the ability to metabolize citrate in the presence of oxygen, something that e coli had not previoously been able to do.
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### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2014, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-theory-of-evolution-testable/319752/72 "2014-01-30T01:21:13Z")
> [@leahcim](#):
>
> Well, it does have _something_ to do with evolution. If there was no plausible mechanism for complex life to arise from simple life, then all the hypotheses about abiogenesis would have to have modern, complex organisms arising spontaneously, which would be very hard to swallow in a naturalistic scenario.
>
> Evolution makes naturalistic abiogenesis a lot more plausible since only very simple mutating replicators need to arise, and then evolution can take it from there. If there was not evolution, viable hypotheses about life’s origins would look very different.
If someone seeded Earth with a self-replicating molecule and left, we’d hardly be able to tell the difference from what we see today. I never thought about it the other way around before, but I agree that if life could not have evolved it would have to be plunked here without abiogenesis.
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### Author:  [@Ornery\_Bob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ornery_Bob)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2014, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-theory-of-evolution-testable/319752/73 "2014-01-30T05:35:09Z")
_I mean, we can breed dogs to have flat faces and teeny legs, but does that really test that evolution happened without any outside influence?"_
Try explaining it this way… Yes it does, actually. Dog breeding is unnatural selection and evolution is natural selection but neither would be possible without mutations offering themselves to be selected or not.
The only way you get a dog with a flat face is if a long faced dog gives birth to a puppy with a shorter than “normal” face. The human decides that is a desirable trait and so keeps looking for puppies with shorter than normal faces and breeding them together. The human can “select” the shorter face puppies for breeding but if no shorter face puppies ever appeared on their own, you’ve got nothing to select for. Unnatural selection only works if natural variation exists.
Natural selection works in exactly the same way; variations appear and those that offer desirable traits get selected for breeding. When the trees they perch on start getting darker from pollution, the darker moths stay hidden and the lighter moths get seen and eaten. Natural variation and selective breeding happen in nature and in fact, man couldn’t do it with dogs, if it didn’t.
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### Author:  [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2014, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-theory-of-evolution-testable/319752/74 "2014-01-30T16:26:52Z")
> [@Yllaria](#):
>
> Yes! That’s the[E. coli long-term evolution experiment](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli_long-term_evolution_experiment).
Not to mention the not-exactly-planned ongoing worldwide “antibiotic-resistant bacteria” experiment. Results are pretty much what evolutionary theory predicts.
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### Author:  [@Learjeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Learjeff)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2014, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-theory-of-evolution-testable/319752/75 "2014-01-30T18:49:06Z")
> [@Ornery\_Bob](#):
>
> Try explaining it this way… Yes it does, actually. Dog breeding is unnatural selection and evolution is natural selection but neither would be possible without mutations offering themselves to be selected or not.
>
> The only way you get a dog with a flat face is if a long faced dog gives birth to a puppy with a shorter than “normal” face. The human decides that is a desirable trait and so keeps looking for puppies with shorter than normal faces and breeding them together. The human can “select” the shorter face puppies for breeding but if no shorter face puppies ever appeared on their own, you’ve got nothing to select for. Unnatural selection only works if natural variation exists.
>
> Natural selection works in exactly the same way; variations appear and those that offer desirable traits get selected for breeding. When the trees they perch on start getting darker from pollution, the darker moths stay hidden and the lighter moths get seen and eaten. Natural variation and selective breeding happen in nature and in fact, man couldn’t do it with dogs, if it didn’t.
You’re right, but just to play devil’s advocate, this kind of change requires only modification of regulation genes, but not invention of whole new features. Admittedly a lot of morphological changes in the evolutionary record are this kind of change (just watch as a land mammal evolves into a whale, for example: most bones keep their primary relationships but just change in length and curvature.) Critics of evolution don’t find this particularly compelling.
Evidently they don’t see that regulatory genes are genes just like any others, from the standpoint of evolution (mutations cause them to work differently). What they lack is the substantial power of imagination required to appreciate how the same kind of mechanism can, over time, create radically new structures and functionality. But since they lack this power, it’s not very fruitful to try to explain evolution using artificial selection as an example.
The Galapagos finches example falls prey to the same issue.
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### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2014, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-theory-of-evolution-testable/319752/76 "2014-01-30T20:41:30Z")
> [@Learjeff](#):
>
> You’re right, but just to play devil’s advocate, this kind of change requires only modification of regulation genes, but not invention of whole new features. Admittedly a lot of morphological changes in the evolutionary record are this kind of change (just watch as a land mammal evolves into a whale, for example: most bones keep their primary relationships but just change in length and curvature.) Critics of evolution don’t find this particularly compelling.
I wonder if the ability of dogs to understand the human environment is a new feature. There has certainly been selective pressure for it. New physical features, on the other hand, might have been selected against, so their absence is not an indicator of anything.
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