I believe in evolution, (the full-blown kind, not the ID kind) yey I am going to have to disagree with you here. I have yet to hear of a single testable facet of evolution. The example you give, that chimps and humans share a large portion of their DNA is consistent with evolution. But that is not the same thing as a repeatable test not is it predictive.
The idea was that chimps and humans were very closely related.
The experiment was to check their DNA to see if they were similar.
They were. Isn't that an experiment to confirm a prediction based
on evolution?
Isn't finding transitional fossils something that was predicted by
evolution and confirmed?
No one has ever conducted an "evolution experiment" whereby the input was some lower life form and the output was a higher life form.
Is that the only kind of test you allow?
Testable like you want pretty tough, since we have only just evolved to the
level of understanding to do something like that, and the timespans
are enormous. But you could look into evo-devo and the whole idea
of toolkit genes and switches. It makes all of life look a lot more similar
than it used to. Not just chimps and humans. So prediction: lifeforms are
closely related. Test: check out how the lifeform is built. Result: find deep
similarities.
We can observer similiar phenomena such as selectively
breeding animals to enhance certain traits and we can
and have observed minor variations in species as they react
to changes in their environment. These are both evidence of
evolution, but neither is a prediction or an experiment.
For prediction, I just happened to read this sentence in the November issue of Natural History:
Perhaps the best-known
tale of Darwin and orchids comes from his study of the Madagascan
comet orchid, whose long nectary led him to correctly predict the
existence of a moth pollinator with an eleven-inch proboscis.
I could
always propose some exotic other mechanism (such as perhaps
monkeys evolved from humans)
That's not another mechanism.
which may be less likely to be
consistent with other pieces of evidence, but is similarly not
"disprovable" by any test until someone actually observes a
monkey evolve into an human.
How does that disprove anything?
How is Flying
Spaghetti Monster inconsistent with the evidence at all?
Slashdot Mirror
I'm over 40.
The idea was that chimps and humans were very closely related. The experiment was to check their DNA to see if they were similar. They were. Isn't that an experiment to confirm a prediction based on evolution?
Isn't finding transitional fossils something that was predicted by evolution and confirmed?
No one has ever conducted an "evolution experiment" whereby the input was some lower life form and the output was a higher life form.
Is that the only kind of test you allow?
Testable like you want pretty tough, since we have only just evolved to the level of understanding to do something like that, and the timespans are enormous. But you could look into evo-devo and the whole idea of toolkit genes and switches. It makes all of life look a lot more similar than it used to. Not just chimps and humans. So prediction: lifeforms are closely related. Test: check out how the lifeform is built. Result: find deep similarities.
We can observer similiar phenomena such as selectively breeding animals to enhance certain traits and we can and have observed minor variations in species as they react to changes in their environment. These are both evidence of evolution, but neither is a prediction or an experiment.
For prediction, I just happened to read this sentence in the November issue of Natural History: Perhaps the best-known tale of Darwin and orchids comes from his study of the Madagascan comet orchid, whose long nectary led him to correctly predict the existence of a moth pollinator with an eleven-inch proboscis.
I could always propose some exotic other mechanism (such as perhaps monkeys evolved from humans)
That's not another mechanism.
which may be less likely to be consistent with other pieces of evidence, but is similarly not "disprovable" by any test until someone actually observes a monkey evolve into an human.
How does that disprove anything? How is Flying Spaghetti Monster inconsistent with the evidence at all?
Just remember kids: Science can't prove anything.