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daniel_i_l
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I'm currently reading a book that presents the different kinds of evidence for evolution. Throughout the book, the author claims that evolution can make certain testable predictions. For example, he writes about biologists who examined birds and reptiles and predicted that they'd find a common ancestor in a certain level of rock. When they looked for fossils in that level they actually found the common ancestor.
Now, since the fossil record is rather sparse (less than 0.1 percent of living animals are fossilized), there are many common ancestors that we can't find. So even when biologists don't find the proposed ancestor, they can always say that this doesn't disprove the theory because the fossil record is missing so many evolutionary steps anyway. With this in mind, why are the fulfilled predictions of evolution more impressive that the predictions of a false prophet? If only a small percentage of evolution's predictions come true, and there's a ready explanation for all the times that they don't (which is most of the time), then how can the true predictions be proof of anything?
Now, since the fossil record is rather sparse (less than 0.1 percent of living animals are fossilized), there are many common ancestors that we can't find. So even when biologists don't find the proposed ancestor, they can always say that this doesn't disprove the theory because the fossil record is missing so many evolutionary steps anyway. With this in mind, why are the fulfilled predictions of evolution more impressive that the predictions of a false prophet? If only a small percentage of evolution's predictions come true, and there's a ready explanation for all the times that they don't (which is most of the time), then how can the true predictions be proof of anything?