: But producing different breeds of cats isn't evolution at all. It is simply selecting for particular characteristics already inherent in the organism. Evolution is the ongoing process of natural selection; the effect that the natural environment has in "simply selecting for particular characteristics already inherent"; take this process far enough and the speciation occurs; as with the famous example of the Galapagos finches; which were all genetically similar but had evolved different-shaped bills as a response to pressures from the external environment.
: Speciation as you are describing it isn't evolution in the general sense either. If organisms diverge into separate species, it is because they LOSE genetic information and are no longer to breed with their original species. It is NOT adding new information.
Where on Earth did you get that idea from? any significant loss of genetic information would result in an unviable lifeform; it simply wouldn't survive and it certainly wouldn't result in a new species because it would be unable to breed.
: Evolution would require adding wings, for example, instead of front legs on a mouse or rat to produce a bat. Where does the new genetic information come from?
Absurd. Evolution can be nothing more than a change in size. It doesn't have to be a radical change.
: And since when is the ability to prove something wrong considered science? Seems like bad logic to me. If I can prove that the earth is not flat, then it would be bad science to insist it is flat.
It's been that way since Greek times; the method of reductio ad absurdem; start off with an axiom ("The Earth is flat!"); examine the consequences of the axiom ("If the Earth is flat, you cannot circumnavigate it"), then test the axiom (circumnavigate the Earth). If you manage to invalidate the axiom (if you manage to circumnavigate the world), then the original axiom was false (i.e. the Earth is not flat.)
This is reductio ad absurdem as first used by the Ancient Greeks to prove that the square root of two wasn't a rational number.
Karl Popper applied the same method to science in general; as pure science is based on logical principles. If you can posit an axiom in science and demonstrate it to be untrue, you have reinforced the case for the opposite being true; so you prove the Earth to be not flat by conducting experiments based on the assumption that the Earth is flat; the results of these experiments show that the Earth cannot be flat, thus adding weight to the axiom that the Earth is not flat.
So the ability to prove something wrong has been instrumental in logic for the last 2,000 years.
There is nothing illogical in saying the Earth is flat; it is not "bad science"; it is merely invalidated by the experimental evidence. In the absence of any evidence, a flat Earth is as rational as a curved one; it the process of scientific experimentation which proves the Earth to be not flat.
Thus it's not bad science to say that the Earth is flat. It's a bad theory, however, and it would be very bad science to continue insisting that the Earth is flat in the teeth of physical evidence which said that the Earth wasn't. If experimental data proves your theory to be wrong, you re-evaluate your theory and abandon it if necessary.
: Therefore, if I can prove that evolution can not occur, does that make it bad science to insist it did occur?
Can you prove that evolution did not occur - from first principles?
If you can provide logical and irrefutable proof that it did not occur, then yes, the theory of evolution would be wrecked and it would be bad science to reiterate the theory of evolution in the light of experimental evidence.
That is why evolution is a theory and not a theorem; it is possible to prove evolution to be untrue.
However, it is also the simplest theory which explains the observed facts without recourse to unprovable things and is thus the most logically sound theory.
: Seems like a good argument to me.
That's because you appear to have little understanding of formal logic and the scientific process; and thus your usage of logical concepts like "proof", "induction" and "evidence" is necessarily limited by your lack of logical understanding.
(I'm not saying that makes you inferior, bad or subhuman; it's just that you're trying to use logical concepts to back up your beliefs when you don't fully understand the concepts you're trying to use.)
Gideon.
