[ExI] Really? and EP

[Stefano Vaj]

On Tue, Apr 21, 2009 at 6:59 PM, Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com>wrote:

> It depends how generalized or indirect (approaching vacuity) you want that
> basis to be. If you say "The heritable basis for elective celibacy,
> clitoridectomy, extending the lips with larger and larger inserted plates,
> filing the teeth to points, foot-binding, teen suicide epidemics, spending
> years of effort and tens of thousands of dollars gaining a PhD in
> deconstruction is [sexual display/team player display/support for same-gene
> procreators/whatever]" it starts to look pretty indistinguishable from "God
> wills it" or "stochasticity".
>

Why, it is true that evolution after a fashion is "non-falsifiable" in a
Popperian sense, since every genetically-influenced trait must have evolved,
one way or another, so that it may true that it is per se more a worldview
than a scientific theory.

What are falsifiable, on the other hand, are theories concerning how a
single trait has evolved and why.

Now, some theories may be more far-fetched than other, other may seem at a
time plausible to be then thoroughly confutated by subsequent hypothesis,
but all in all this provides for a conceptual framework to understand and
deal with the issues concerned which end up being more interesting that "God
wills it". :-)

-- 
Stefano Vaj
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