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Falsifiable Predictions of Evolutionary Theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Mary B. Williams
Mary B. Williams*
Affiliation:
Indiana University
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Abstract

Many philosophers have asserted that evolutionary theory is unfalsifiable. In this paper I refute these assertions by detailing some falsifiable predictions of the theory and the evidence used to test them. I then analyze both these predictions and evidence cited to support assertions of unfalsifiability in order to show both what type of predictions are possible and why it has been so difficult to spot them. The conclusion is that the apparent logical peculiarity of evolutionary theory is not a property of evolutionary theory; it is a property of our human-sized perspective on evolutionary theory.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 40 , Issue 4 , December 1973 , pp. 518 - 537
Copyright
Copyright © 1973 by The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

This work was supported by a National Science Foundation grant. I wish to express my appreciation to David L. Hull, whose insistent demands that I clarify my position on the nature of evolutionary theory forced me to write this paper.

References

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