How do you prove or disprove a theory like evolution?

Well, first you need to have a good understanding of what evolution is. That may not be easy! Evolution is considered by some to be a "the great unifying theory of all of science". That is, it is applicable in some way to everything that exists. Most experts would hold to such an idea in varying degrees.

But, this sort of notion makes the "theory" very difficult to pin down definition-wise enough to really test it. Because every living thing is supposedly changing as time goes on, so are their behaviors and activities. The ways that each interacts with the world around them is never static.

This fruit bat doesn't mind living near the city

The key factor in the viability of the theory can be summarized in the way it agrees with our understanding of biological adaptation. Evolution is a passive theory relying almost solely on creature's ability to adapt and change in response to environmental changes. Evolution takes "adaptation" and tries to make it a master genetic engineer, capable of virtually unlimited design prowess.

Adaptation

So, the evolutionists tends to see every little subtle change in living things as evidence of evolution. Most also acknowledge that this may reflect a process that is known as, "adaptation". Adaptation is the process whereby living things are able to survive in the face of otherwise dangerous changes in the environment. Adaptation can also (in theory anyway) enable living things to increase their competitive edge on others of their kind when better equipped varieties emerge by mutation.

Creatures often have varieties within a species that can better cope with problems facing them than others of their kind. These varieties that can cope tend to propagate themselves better than the others and the more, "adaptive" types will grow in numbers resulting in minor change in species.

Adaptation is a process that is easily observable in such things as insects, bacteria and viruses. These are able to adapt to insecticides, medicines and drugs used to control and kill them. Some bugs are harder to kill with DDT. These will eventually propagate themselves and render DDT useless.

Adaptation is a gradual process generally. It can help a species survive hardship and cause rare varieties to displace ones that were more common. But, it also requires that the "hardship" remain the case long enough to make the change stick. In reality, once the DDT is eliminated, the originally common type will displace the "adaptive" type once again.

So, you can see that "adaptation" need not be permanent and can easily be reversed.

Also, adaptation is opportunistic in that it makes an opportunity for a less useful variation to become more useful. It has no way to create a variety of a species. It can only help already existing ones be more successful.

Adaptation is always limited by the kinds of variations that exist within a species at the time the opportunity presents itself.

These are two realities of adaptation that need to be noted:

1. Adaptation in itself provides no means for genetic change. It can only provide opportunities for currently existing variants, mutants or built in variations(that always existed).

2. Adaptation is limited by numerous environmental and biological factors. Environment changes such as geological isolation or catastrophic events or man-made pressures can lead to adaptive changes. Adaptation is least likely to occur during stable periods in the environment. Reproductive success and low mortality rates for young are overriding factors for the possibility of a permanent adaptation in every case.

Evolution

Evolution, on the other hand, requires that great successions of adaptations have taken place in nature. Each one must have been the result of near extinctions of once more prolific and adaptive ancestors. This is necessary in order to render the previously more successful and common type unable to recover it's former status.

Evolution assumes that adaptation has the power to engineer all living things that have ever existed. Furthermore, all the necessary varieties to make every transition from single-celled microbes to all living things past and present have been the result of genetic mutation. So, we are nothing more then extremely mutated microbes and that all the required mutants happened to occur in just the right sequence with just the right adaptive conditions to keep such an enormous string of mutants on the right course of change.

Evolution exploits adaptation as a means of justifying an otherwise lamarckian natural creation story.

Intelligent Design

Adaptation doesn't need to do anything very imaginative from an ID perspective. It's seen as an important design consideration rather than a creative force. Adaptation offers resilience and flexibility in the way species as a whole can cope with environmental changes. ID doesn't expect adaptation to result in major changes in any given genome (complement of genetic factors characteristic to a given species).

ID predicts that living things which were designed extremely well and introduced in a perfected genetic state have since in successive generations accumulated more and more genetic errors in each genome which will be increasingly reflected in health problems. This will also be reflected in a wider range of genetic variants within every species as time goes on. Cancers, birth defects, sterility and other genetic problems, were once nonexistent, will grow more common as time goes on.

ID further predicts that species will demonstrate resilience and tenacity as their design has built in means of enduring adversity by adapting. But, the genetic integrity of each group will be needed for their continued existence. Living things are complex, yet profoundly efficient and mutually dependent. Adaptation will have little if any to offer in the form of producing major changes.

Wayne Hollyoak