Dear Blacknad,
"But is speciation falsifiable?"
Now THAT is an interesting question. Speciation is an observable fact. Even the creationist intelligentsia now admits that speciation occurs. However, they maintain that while animal populations can generate new species, they cannot generate new 'kinds.'
Can observable facts be falsified? Can we falsify the idea that the earth is round, for example. Yes. Falsification doesn't mean we can actually disprove something. Falsification means that we can devise a question that would disprove the idea if it were wrong. If the world were flat, for example, a mariner could travel on the ocean and coastal mountain ranges would not vanish disappear behind the horizon.
I've never actually thought through the criteria for speciation, since it's observable, but I'll think about it a bit and get back with you.
"It is backed up by an emotional and intuitive belief that purely random processes cannot produce some of the complexity we see. I FEEL there must be some driving force."
That's an honest sentiment and honest reasoning. How could I have a problem with it?
First, the nature of randomness is not well understood by most lay people, especially as concerns evolution. Random doesn't mean "anything goes." If I write a program that generates random real numbers uniformly distributed between 0 and 1, it's not going to return 100 as a result. It's also not going to return a number that requires more bits to represent than the computer can handle. Random does not mean unconstrained. It could be that some God or Force set up the rules in such a way as to favor evolution. I don't know. I don't believe it, but I don't know. Science can't address such a thing.
I think a lot of science is trying to overcome our natural prejudice. I was talking to a mathematician the other day who just also happens to be an artist. He said that in art, one of the things you have to do is train yourself to see what's really there and not what you think you see. I think science is a lot like this.
Science will never say there is no god. Science will never say there is a god. Science can't deal with anything outside nature.
