Could you point to an theory from the article that can be falsified? I'm having trouble thinking how I could devise an experiment to falsify, for example, this:

"Having breasts would be a sign of having a fair amount of fat, and men would find this sexy, because fatter women would give rise to fatter children, who would survive better."

That is a quote from the "rival theories" section, isn't it - so it is not the opinion of the author of the original piece.

However, one way to falsify it (for starters) would be to look at the actual survival rates of fat children, and at the fatness of fat women (do fat women actually have fatter children, and do they actually survive better?).

Also one could look at other species to who the same conditions apply, and see if the prediction comes true - they should have something signalling "healthy fat levels", too. If they don't, the theory is in trouble.

Just some things to do off the top of my head. There seem to be countless ways to have a go at that hypothesis, no?

Sorry if I picked an inappropriate example. It was quite hard to get to the meat of what the author was saying, which I think just goes further to highlight my point.

And no, I don't think looking at the survival rates of fat children is going to help test the hypothesis. For one thing, we live in very different conditions today to those we evolved in so very few observations of modern society are relevant.

It may well be impossible to test the claim "God made it", but it's bordering on impossible to test these evolutionary claims too.

Not to suggest that I disagree with the study of anthropology -- far from it. I just don't think it's a science.

"For one thing, we live in very different conditions today to those we evolved in"

I think ultimately biology goes back to the laws of physics, and I don't think those have changed much in the last couple of 1000 years. Also, I think we have some idea what life was 10000 years ago - there certainly was no breast enhancement surgery, and no anti baby pill, for example.

That is precisely where I see a difference from the "god made it" hypothesis: for evolution and biology, and relationships and stuff, there ARE models, which can be used to predict things (either for the future, or for data points in the past). There is no such thing for "god made it". Therefore I don't understand why you think the "fat" theory can not be put to the test. Maybe my ideas were not convincing - I am not a biologist anyway. But that doesn't prove that there can be no test. In physics, there also is not always a test to test a theory. There are theoretical physicists and practical physicists, and some practitioners are considered brilliant for finding good way to test certain theories.

Of course I admit that strictly speaking, I am not making a 100% case against the god hypothesis. You could answer "of course, god made it so that {insert elaborate theory from physics}, then there would be something to test". But I hope you know what I mean anyway.

Not 100% sure what constitutes a science, either - this discussion made me think of court cases. Suppose you want to find out who committed a murder. You can not test that either - you can only collect evidence that person X did it, but I don't think you can test it (no repeatable test for the future - you can only kill the victim once). Is it therefore not a science? But still it seems possible at least in some cases to identify the murder with high certainty.

I'm not trying to make a very important point really, just point out that I don't think anthropological theories can be falsified, despite your assertion otherwise.

That's not to suggest I think the "god created it" theory has the same intellectual standing as the anthropological theories, just that neither of them are scientific.

By the way, according to Popper, a scientific theory is exactly one that can be falsified, hence my introduction of the word "science" into the discussion.