---
title: "Objections to evolution"
chunk: 6/15
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:36:58.826933+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

Assuming for the purposes of argument, however, that evolution is a religion or religious tenet, the remedy is to stop the teaching of evolution, not establish another religion in opposition to it. Yet it is clearly established in the case law, and perhaps also in common sense, that evolution is not a religion and that teaching evolution does not violate the Establishment Clause, Epperson v. Arkansas, supra, Willoughby v. Stever, No. 15574-75 (D.D.C. May 18, 1973); aff'd. 504 F.2d 271 (D.C. Cir. 1974), cert. denied, 420 U.S. 924 (1975); Wright v. Houston Indep. School Dist., 366 F. Supp. 1208 (S.D. Tex 1978), aff.d. 486 F.2d 137 (5th Cir. 1973), cert. denied 417 U.S. 969 (1974).
A related claim is that evolution is atheistic (see the Atheism section below); creationists sometimes merge the two claims and describe evolution as an "atheistic religion" (cf. humanism). This argument against evolution is also frequently generalized into a criticism of all science; it is argued that "science is an atheistic religion", on the grounds that its methodological naturalism is as unproven, and thus as "faith-based", as the supernatural and theistic beliefs of creationism.

=== Unfalsifiability ===
A statement is considered falsifiable if there is an observation or a test that could be made that would demonstrate that the statement is false. Statements that are not falsifiable cannot be examined by scientific investigation since they permit no tests that evaluate their accuracy. Creationists such as Henry M. Morris have claimed that any observation can be fitted into the evolutionary framework, so it is impossible to demonstrate that evolution is wrong and therefore evolution is non-scientific.
Evolution could be falsified by many conceivable lines of evidence, such as:

the fossil record showing no change over time,
confirmation that mutations are prevented from accumulating in a population, or
observations of organisms being created supernaturally or spontaneously.
J. B. S. Haldane, when asked what hypothetical evidence could disprove evolution, replied "fossil rabbits in the Precambrian era." Numerous other potential ways to falsify evolution have also been proposed. For example, the fact that humans have one fewer pair of chromosomes than the great apes offered a testable hypothesis involving the fusion or splitting of chromosomes from a common ancestor. The fusion hypothesis was confirmed in 2005 by discovery that human chromosome 2 is homologous with a fusion of two chromosomes that remain separate in other primates. Extra, inactive telomeres and centromeres remain on human chromosome 2 as a result of the fusion. The assertion of common descent could also have been disproven with the invention of DNA sequencing methods. If true, human DNA should be far more similar to chimpanzees and other great apes, than to other mammals. If not, then common descent is falsified. DNA analysis has shown that humans and chimpanzees share a large percentage of their DNA (between 95% and 99.4% depending on the measure). Also, the evolution of chimpanzees and humans from a common ancestor predicts a (geologically) recent common ancestor. Numerous transitional fossils have since been found. Hence, human evolution has passed several falsifiable tests.
Many of Darwin's ideas and assertions of fact have been falsified as evolutionary science has developed, but these amendments and falsifications have uniformly confirmed his central concepts. In contrast, creationist explanations involving the direct intervention of the supernatural in the physical world are not falsifiable, because any result of an experiment or investigation could be the unpredictable action of an omnipotent deity.
In 1976, the philosopher Karl Popper said that "Darwinism is not a testable scientific theory but a metaphysical research programme." He later changed his mind and argued that Darwin's "theory of natural selection is difficult to test" with respect to other areas of science.
In his 1982 book, Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism, philosopher of science Philip Kitcher specifically addresses the "falsifiability" question by taking into account notable philosophical critiques of Popper by Carl Gustav Hempel and Willard Van Orman Quine and provides a definition of theory other than as a set of falsifiable statements. As Kitcher points out, if one took a strictly Popperian view of "theory", observations of Uranus when it was first discovered in 1781 would have "falsified" Isaac Newton's celestial mechanics, as there were irregularities in its orbit that did not line up with predictions. Instead of discarding Newtonian mechanics as a viable explanation of the solar system's motion, people suggested that another planet, not yet observed at the time, influenced Uranus' orbit—and this prediction was indeed eventually confirmed. Kitcher agrees with Popper that "there is surely something right in the idea that a science can succeed only if it can fail." But he insists that we view scientific theories as consisting of an "elaborate collection of statements", some of which are not falsifiable, and others—what he calls "auxiliary hypotheses", which are.

=== Tautological nature ===
A related claim to the supposed unfalsifiability of evolution is that natural selection is tautological. Specifically, it is often argued that the phrase "survival of the fittest" is a tautology, in that fitness is defined as ability to survive and reproduce.  This phrase was first used by Herbert Spencer in 1864 but is rarely used by biologists. Additionally, fitness is more accurately defined as the state of possessing traits that make survival more likely; this definition, unlike simple "survivability", avoids being trivially true.
Similarly, it is argued that evolutionary theory is circular reasoning, in that evidence is interpreted as supporting evolution, but evolution is required to interpret the evidence. An example of this is the claim that geological strata are dated through the fossils they hold, but that fossils are in turn dated by the strata they are in. However, in most cases strata are not dated by their fossils, but by their position relative to other strata and by radiometric dating, and most strata were dated before the theory of evolution was formulated.

== Evidence ==

Objections to the fact that evolution occurs tend to focus on specific interpretations about the evidence.