But can you really debunk or refute a scientific theory...or just revise according to new evidence? Since the evidentiary basis of a theory is necessarily incomplete, thus preventing the theory form being recorded as fact, isn't the process of theory development one of evolutionary revision, rather than one of debunking or refutation and the re-establishment of a "new" theory.
Take the ongoing process of developing a theory on the mobility of the dinosaurs. Years ago it was generally accepted, due to the clues of a few fossil specimens used as a small keyhole of insight into millions of years of history, that dinosuars were slow, plodding, lugubrious beats. One of the heaviest known at the time, Brachiosaurus, was said to have spent 90% of his life ambling in deep lakes to buoy up his tons of weight, munching on aquatic vegetation. But in the 80's a new generation of sceintists began to uncover some fossils that led them to change the theory to a view of dinosaurs as highly mobile, agile, and capable of runing speeds never before considered. Were these scientists debunking or refuting a theory that is still onoging in it's development? Hardly, I think. Simply revising it, according to the evidentiary trail they've been following since the research on this particular aspect of the dinosaurs' life was first theorized.
And, today, after this vision of the dinosaurs' mobility gained precedent to the crescendo of the the running Tyrannosaurus Rex in Jurassic Park, there's suddenly been new evidence presented with the help of computer-technology that, yet again, reshapes the theory of the dinosaurs' mobility (at least, for now, in the case of the Tyrannosaur) into a vision of much less agility and speed capability. But the theory does not actually revert back to the original proposals. And, indeed, the fossil evidence since disovered of many smaller, birdlike predators may still adhere to the scenario of speed and agility in their respective species' case. So are these scientists debunking one another here, or just building their own stepping stones towards a greater ultimate understanding of this developing theory? Ditto anthropaleontology and the humanoid fossils. Are the Leakeys and other scientists (while we all know of the competitive posturing) really working to debunk or refute one another? Or simply working to discover new trails of evidence to add insight to the ongoing theory which ultimately leads to the answer they are all seeking?
