All science is referenced to data, and all science generalizes from the data. Like every other discipline of science, evolution is both empirical and theoretical in warp and woof.
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Okay. Thanks for that explanation, Ron.
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as long as you really understand what “theoretical” means instead of superimposing “Factual” on it.
Richard
The theoretical is based on the factual and is about physical facts.
The data is physical, the theoretical inferences and conclusions are about the physical, and neither have anything to do with philosophy or the metaphysical. It seems that concept is too esoteric for some.
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That was a rhetorical question not requiring an answer because the answer is right there in black and white in front of our noses directly under Ron @rsewell’s username. It is both.
No, it wasn’t.
You have been claiming empirical and ignoring any idea that there might be theorising.
And youu hide behind the principle tht in science a theory can be counted as fact.
Generalization?
I wonder if that is similar to extrapolation?
That is, taking a viewed and known example and superimposing it onto a bigger or complex version and saying that it must work. (The essence of TOE)
Richard
This is hopeless. You don’t know what words mean, and not just extrapolation.
ex·tra·po·la·tion
[ikˌstrapəˈlāSHən, ekˌstrapəˈlāSHən]
NOUN
- the action of estimating or concluding something by assuming that existing trends will continue or a current method will remain applicable:
And that is what I said it was. Assuming that what you see in one place will work in another.
And that is what TOE does. It sees a transformation n one situation and assumes that it can achieve the same result in earlier (much larger) situations.
It is an extrapolation.
Do not insult my intelligence again (Or I will report you again)
Richard
It means it is a projection, not a generalization.
And the applicable definition of philosophy for discussions about science is:
a discipline comprising as its core logic, aesthetics, ethics, metaphysics, and epistemology
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That is some part of it, but generalization is really about distilling the principles which explain the process.
Take, for instance, the boiling point of water. Measure it - now you have a data point, a fact if you will. For much of the public, that is the beginning and end of science. But you do not yet have a principle, any sort of fundamental understanding. There is nothing there to generalize, nor consilience with other lines of scientific investigation.
Now you find water boils at different temperatures at different locations, and eliminate alternatives until pressure remains. Returning to the lab, hundreds of data points for temperature vs pressure are analyzed and regressed to a smooth curve. Now we have a generalization - a boiling point which has never been directly tested can be predicted if on the domain of the curve. Then a 3D relationship between temperature, pressure, and density is established. But what are the limits of the domain? The critical points are found, the triple point is determined. Viscosity, surface tension, speed of sound, and heat capacity are added, and we have a better understanding of phase definitions and transitions. A full equation of state emerges, which can be analyzed by thermodynamics and statistical mechanics. It is found that the equation of state can be violated, that water can be driven into unstable zones which then exhibit nearly explosive transitions. So the exceptions as well lead to deeper understanding. Shock waves propagate faster than the speed of sound. Now we have a much, much deeper understanding of the underlying principles surrounding the boiling point of water.
Then the understanding we have now gained can be generalized further, to places we could never hope to access. Equations of state which describe commonplace gas laws, follow to the extreme conditions of stellar interior plasmas to yield the containment required for fusion. Without generalizations of equations of state, we could not analyze earthquake waves to determine inaccessible features of the earth’s deep interior, supernovae dynamics, or neutron star structure.
All of that is possible because science is ultimately not just about data points such as the boiling point of water, but rather understanding universal principles of nature. It is not about a static snapshot in time, it is about the unfolding process. We see the principles driving that process, happening in all all stages. The processes we observe are of a continuity, and the principles which drive them are what are constant.
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So you could have a lager full of lager. 
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Then you’d have to have a lager lager ledger.
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Extrapolation is useful for forming generalizations.
And all of science uses those, or at least every one I’ve studied, which include astronomy, biology, chemistry, ecology, forestry, geology, meteorology, oceanography, and physics. In fact extrapolations are one way to generate hypotheses (another is to ask, “I wonder what would happen if…”).
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That’s not really a generalization though. It’s suggesting tweaking a physical parameter to ask how it might change the trajectory of an extrapolation, so to speak. Maybe interpolations are more analogous to generalizations.
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Just in water? or in air as well?
This made me think of:
which brought me to a thought:
Here’s what is getting confused: the science, and our response to the science. God doesn’t belong in (doing) science, but He belongs around science.
Theology thrives (and depends) on prepositions since prepositions are very good at describing relationships. In this case the first preposition is “in”, Greek “ἐν”, the second is “around”, Greek “περί”. Using those, we can say “enscientific” and “periscientific”, so that in terms of doing science God is enscientific, not in the science, but He is periscientific, (all) around the science.
So the difference between atheists doing science and Christians doing science is that the atheists don’t see God around or under the science, but Christians do – and the response to science is where we should put God.
[There are a variety of flaws in that schema, but it was off the top of my head.]
And in terms of this thread, to our little intelligent design club, I could say that God was aposcientific, “from science”, because that’s where former atheists and agnostics were finding Him – in evolution, in cosmology, and more.
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And some would boast that they have a larger lager lager ledger.
If true, that would make them the larger lager lager ledger leader.
[and I can say it fast three times!]
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Any medium. High explosives produce shock waves.
And who wrote in it could be called the l5 loader. (Reminding me of the second in sequence shingles shot I got while purchasing shells at the seashore the other week. @Paraleptopecten could tell us if they were she seashells.)
So that’s the best excuse you can come up with for equating a theory (eg. ToE) with fact?
There you go with your accusatory and excessive language again.
It is not an excuse, it is a fact about how the words are used, and yes, it analogous to the fact of the antiquity of the universe and the well-established theory of big bang cosmology, and the facts about how the universe evolved.