Philosophy

Rather than presenting an account of how embryology is studied in the 21st century, the "Embryology" chapter concludes by exhorting students to pretend they are jurors in a court case against evolution. It's unclear what the charges might be, but it is certain that the students would be diverted from a fair verdict by the chapter's studious avoidance of current science in the field.

Rather than a scientific argument, the book offers a philosophical charge, that evolution has been rendered unfalsifiable. This charge rests on a misrepresentation of how science works, and what evolutionary developmental biologists actually claim. It is one thing to argue that there is no evidence which currently falsifies common ancestry, and quite another to say that no such evidence could ever exist. Scientists agree to the former statement, but not the latter.

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