Excellent post, Mod, and it leaves me curious what has been left out now.
What happens if my destination's location is the unwitting victim of a common misconception? Everybody thinks they know where it is (and everybody agrees where they think it is), but everybody is wrong in the same way.
It occurred to me that another contrast would be to compare finding the north pole with finding the west pole. Lots of people will confidently tell you to "go west, young man, go west" and point you in the proper direction. No matter where you start from the lines of direction never converge on a single location, and eventually you end up back where you started, perhaps after circulating the globe several times.
One could pursue an analogy to places of faith (and being able to find them if you believe in them, while having others tell you that the "west pole" is a myth and it doesn't exist), however all that is necessary is to show that one does not have much confidence in finding the west pole if the information does not converge on a destination.
You could also do this by asking where "town hall" was in various cities, and drawing your lines from your location in the direction pointed, before going off to the next town and repeating your inquiry. Here too, there is a lack of convergence on a single location because the destination is not well defined.
Having read a multitude of books, read primary literature, conducted simple home tests of my own, spoken personally with scientists who conduct more complex tests, seen various practical applications of knowledge all surrounding the the subject of evolution I am confident that there are multiple independent converging lines of evidence that point to the conclusion that life has changed over time on earth, that all life is related, that the modern synthesis pretty much explains how this all happens, and that it has happened over billions of years. In short (heh) - this is why I have the degree of confidence I have in evolutionary science.
And also, not finding any evidence that evolution does
not happen, that speciation does
not happen, not having any evidence of an inability for life to have evolved from an initial pool of life.
The absence of contradictory evidence after 150+ years of searching is also concordant with the theory of evolution being correct: there are no arrows pointing in the wrong direction.
It will be interesting to see Bertot, homunculus, etc, try to point in other directions ...
Enjoy.
Edited by RAZD, : englsh
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