Does darwin prove the theory of evoulution with his book "the Orgin of Species"?

Question

Because i thought the scientific theory could not be "proved" because it couldn't even be tested as can the theories of exprimental science.

Answer 1

No, he proposed it, and provided evidence which seemed to support his ideas.  Some of the ideas can be tested, and are well supported.  Some is a matter of history with little or no recording.  How would you prove that Julius Caesar did some particular thing?  The fossil record is finite, sparse, and sometimes ambiguous.  Most future decisive answers are likely to come from genetics with DNA analysis.

Answer 2

No theory can be 'proved' by experiment, only demonstrated.

It takes one case to 'disprove' a theory, then it's refined.

Darwin states his theory & lists examples to demonstrate it.

Answer 3

Pretty much.

Answer 4

Science never proves anything - one of the things that makes something scientific is that there is always the chance it could be wrong.  

Darwin provided evidence and a mechanism for evolution.  The evidence has been building up for the last 150 years - millions of fossils, genetic evidence, etc - and evolution has never been disproved.  

Evolution CAN be tested, and has been tested - and it was supported by the tests.  Read up on retroviruses, nylon-eating bacteria, and chromosome number.

Answer 5

you can believe whatever you want to believe... his book offers some concrete examples of the possibilities of evolution, but it will probably never be proven due to the fact that humans can think for themselves

Answer 6

It is strange so many people here say science never proves anything. Even a top contributer ! Did science not prove that the earth goes round the sun and the not the other way round. A theory is just a way explaining things around. It is not a theory but its predictions  that need to be verified to give some credibility to the theory. Scientific knowledge stands on nothing but proof.

The theory of evolution has gained credibility because it predicted that every sophisticated biological structure can be reduced to the most simple structures that have evolved over ages to make sophisticated beings. I did not read the book written by Darwin but he proposed an idea and we have found the implications of that idea to be true. Hence we attribute credibility to the idea itself. The theory of evolution as proposed by Darwin does not even exist any more. The idea has evolved with growing knowledge. We have experimentally verified and found out the mechanisms through which evolution takes place. Are we still going to debate if evolution is true ? At least evolution makes room for free thought and query and not crush all logic under the assumption that some supreme being did it all.

Answer 7

Sorry.  I haven't read the book, but evolution isn't proven to me.  I'm not saying it's not true, to some extent anyway, but, it hasn't been proven concretely to me.  God Bless you.

Answer 8

No science is ever proven, 'Theory' is top of the line as best as it gets.  The fact that we call it the theory of evolution means we are as sure as we can possibly be about it.

To make it probably more confusing for you, evolution is also a fact.

A fact is something that has been observed and we know it happens.  A theory is an explanation of WHY a fact happens.  So there is the fact of evolution: evolution has been observed and we know without any doubt whatsoever that evolution really happens.  The there is the theory of evolution, which is our best explanation of WHY we think evolution happens.  If the theory of evolution were proven completely wrong, it would not change the fact that we KNOW evolution really happens.  It would just mean we don't know WHY it happens.

And to Nimrod:

"is this really the language of science? No it is not."

Actually yes, yes it is.  Science is always clear about where it's assumptions and potential errors are.

"Darwin did not show in the orgin that species had origniated by natrual selection; merely showed, on the basis of certain facts and assumptions how this might have happened"

Whoever wrote that is obviously very unfamiliar with science.  That is what science IS, plain and simple.  We see a fact and we try to show the most reasonable explanation for 'how it might have happened'

Answer 9

Darwin did not use good logic in his famous book.

In 1956 W.R. Thompson, a canadian entomologist (entomology - study of insects) of international repute wrote in his introduction to the centennial edition of darwins orgin, "Darwin did not show in the orgin that species had origniated by natrual selection; merely showed, on the basis of certain facts and assumptions how this might have happened and as he had convinced himself he was able to convince others"

in chapter 4 of the orgin entitled "natural selection; or survival of the fittest" occupies 44 pages in the 1958 mentor edition. in this chapter darwin used the language of speculation, imagination and assumption at least 187 time.  for example, pages 118 and 119 contain the following phrases: "may have been," is supposed to be," "perhaps," "if we suppose," "as i believe," "it is probable," "if we suppose," "may still be," "we have only to suppose," "i have assumed," "are supposed," "well generally tend," "may," "if...assumed," "probably," and "it seems, therefore, extremely probable,"is this really the language of science? No it is not.

of darwins speculative arguments Thopmson wrote, "...Personal convictions, simple possibilities are presented as if they were proofs, or atleast valid arguments in favor of the theory... The demonstrationcan be motified without difficulty to fit any conceivable case.  it is without scientific value, since it cannot bbe verified; but since the imagination has free rein, it is easy to convey the impression that a concrete example of real transmutation (change of one species to another) has been given.

add on;

to:

xyzpdqfoo

what is fact and how is it proven if we only try to explain with a reasonable "explanation"

and eri:

how was it tested i read up on thos things you mention and it only raises more questions. they are very controverisal among creationist  and evolutionist.

i also read about monarch butterflies how a certain part of there dna was extracted the part about the migration and a generation later it was back in some say it was due to evolution others say it was due to Intellectual design both side argue in favor but nothing is proven or disproven.

Answer 10

Eri is right.  You don't "prove" things in science.  You seek *evidence*.

Darwin's book merely outlined his theory of natural selection, and provided preliminary evidence of it, in the form of general observations.   But the bulk of the evidence that has made evolution the cornerstone of modern biology was provided after Darwin, and continues to mount, year after year.

Whoever told you that evolution "couldn't even be tested" has no CLUE about evolution, or about science in general.  Of course evolution could be tested!! ... and has been ... for over 150 years since Darwin's book, it has been tested relentlessly.  

Every time we find a new fossil, a new species, evolution is tested ... if that fossil is out of place (a rabbit fossil in a precambrian layer) then the theory of evolution would be dealt a serious blow.   If we were to have found that the placement of fossils in layers or on the surface of the earth showed no pattern at all, then evolution would be dead.

Every time we discover a new life form, evolution is tested.  If that life form was to have left-handed DNA instead of right-handed DNA like all other life forms, this life form could not have evolved from the same ancestor. If it used a different coding mechanism rather than the three-base system used by all life forms, then that life form could not have evolved from the same ancestor.  If we were to find many, many, completely different systems of inheritance, of metabolism, of amino acids, of protein synthesis, then all these different life forms could not have evolved from the same ancestor.

Evolution is so central to modern biology that *every single new discovery* in biology is a test of evolution!  

And it just keeps passing the test!

All of these are *EVIDENCE* ... not "proof."

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And, BTW, every time the advocates of Intelligent Design come up with a new "how does evolution explain X?" argument ... from different examples of "irreducible complexity", or how "mutations can generate new information", or how "life can violate the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics" ... they are proposing a new *test* of evolution ... so it is bizarre that these same ID advocates will often claim in the same breath that evolution is not "testable"!  The fact that evolution keeps *PASSING* these tests, by producing perfectly plausible explanations and then finding evidence to support them ... is just further strengthening evolution theory.

So in a sense, these ID advocates are providing a great *service* to evolutionary theory, by coming up with new tests, new questions.   But unfortunately, they negate this service by systematically *ignoring* the answers, and instead insisting that we bring these complex "questions" into 10th-grade biology classrooms for "debate."   In other words, it is clear that they only care about the questions, not the answers ... and this is precisely what makes them the *WORST* people to be influencing what we teach as *science*.  Science is not about mere questions ... it is about sincerely seeking *ANSWERS*.

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P.S. to vyj369 ... I have to disagree with the statement "The theory of evolution as proposed by Darwin does not even exist any more."  I'm sorry, but that just isn't true.  The central core of Darwin's theory is the mechanism of natural selection.   That mechanism is still the cornerstone of modern evolutionary theory (although, yes it has been supplemented with the sciences of genetics, and population genetics).

And no, science did not "prove" that the earth goes around the sun.  There was no official moment where we declared "it is now officially proven."   Instead, we just showed, through mounting *evidence*, that this is the best explanation for the events we see in the sky ... the motions of the planets, the retrograde motion of Mars, the phases of Venus, the predictability of eclipses, etc.   It is an understandable act of hindsight to look at our current confidence in the heliocentric theory (and, for those watching, yes it is still called a 'theory') and say that at some point we must have "proved" it.   But that's not really how science works.

In short, the word "proof" is absolute.   Evidence is *cumulative*.   And "proof" is permanent (once proven, it can never be "unproven").   Evidence is always contingent (new evidence can always "disprove" the conclusions drawn from earlier evidence).  

Mathematics deals with "proof" ... science deals in *evidence*.