Moorad Alexanian makes an interesting comment here:
Lee Smolin wrote in his third book, The Trouble with Physics, “He sees string theory as not a theory–only a set of curious conjectures in search of a theory. True, it has great explanatory power, but a viable theory must have more than that. It must make predictions which can be falsified or confirmed.”
One can similarly say of Darwinian Theory of evolution, “I see evolutionary theory as not a theory–only a set of curious conjectures in search of a theory. True, it has great explanatory power, but a viable theory must have more than that. It must make predictions which can be falsified or confirmed.”
Ken Miller and Richard Dawkins would respond that evolutionary theory has made numerous predictions and has been overwhelmingly confirmed. But invariably they’re talking about small-scale evolutionary changes that do not address the massive build-up of complexity that neo-Darwinian theory is supposed to be capable of explaining but gives no indication of being able to explain.