רוב הסיכום שלך לא נכון
לגבי טיעון המעגליות אם מעניין אותך אני ממליץ שתחפש evolution tautology. תמצא הן את הטיעון והן ניסיונות להפריך אותו (כולל בוויקיפדיה). תבחר אתה מה משכנע אותך.
מי שרוצה להשקיע יכול לקרוא מאמר מופת של קארל פופר, אחד הפילוסופים הגדולים של המדע. הוא נוגע שם בסוגיית הטאוטולוגיה ומנסה בעצמו להתגבר עליה.
http://www.informationphilosopher.c...ural_selection_and_the_emergence_of_mind.html
אני מעתיק לכאן חלק מהדברים ששייך למעגליות. כאמור פופר מנסה לפתור אותה בהמשך (אחרי שהוא מוסר שהוא חוזר בו מהטענה למעגליות). רק לזכור שמדובר בפילוסוף ולא במדען, אז להתייחס בהתאם.
However, Darwin's own most important contribution to the theory of evolution, his theory of natural selection, is difficult to test. There are some tests, even some experimental tests; and in some cases, such as the famous phenomenon known as "industrial melanism", we can observe natural selection happening under our very eyes, as it were. Nevertheless, really severe tests of the theory of natural selection are hard to come by, much more so than tests of otherwise comparable theories in physics or chemistry.
The fact that the theory of natural selection is difficult to test has led some people, anti-Darwinists and even some great Darwinists, to claim that it is a tautology. A tautology like "All tables are tables" is not, of course, testable; nor has it any explanatory power. It is therefore most surprising to hear that some of the greatest contemporary Darwinists themselves formulate the theory in such a way that it amounts to the tautology that those organisms that leave most offspring leave most offspring. And C. H. Waddington even says somewhere (and he defends this view in other places) that "Natural selection . . . turns out . . . to be a tautology".6 However, he attributes at the same place to the theory an "enormous power . . . of explanation". Since the explanatory power of a tautology is obviously zero, something must be wrong here.
6. C. H. Waddington, "Evolutionary Adaptation", in S. Tax, ed., Evolution After Darwin: volume I — The Evolution of Life (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1960) pp. 381-402; see p. 385.
Yet similar passages can be found in the works of such great Darwinists as Ronald Fisher, J. B. S. Haldane, and George Gaylord Simpson; and others.
I mention this problem because I too belong among the culprits. Influenced by what these authorities say, I have in the past described the theory as "almost tautological",7 and I have tried to explain how the theory of natural selection could be untestable (as is a tautology) and yet of great scientific interest. My solution was that the doctrine of natural selection is a most successful metaphysical research program. It raises detailed problems in many fields, and it tells us what we would expect of an acceptable solution of these problems.
7. Objective Knowledge (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), p. 241. See also my "Metaphysical Epilogue" to Quantum Theory and the Schism in Physics, vol. III of the Postscript to the Logic of Scientific Discovery, ed. W. W. Bartley, III (London: Hutchinson, 1982).
I still believe that natural selection works in this way as a research program. Nevertheless, I have changed my mind about the testability and the logical status of the theory of natural selection; and I am glad to have an opportunity to make a recantation. My recantation may, I hope, contribute a little to the understanding of the status of natural selection.
