Applying Science to Past Events

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I am going to make mistakes, just like a scientist would, but I am not limited to what was taught to me. I have freedom to think outside the box.

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The problem is, you don't even know what's in the box, so how can you possibly think outside it?Education and knowledge and expertise is what frees thought.Ignorance limits thought.I find this to be true in my work all the time.My field of expertise is in food, particularly olive oil. I am responsible for selling, or training people to sell, $200,000 per year of fine, hand made olive oil out of only two 8' tall shelving units in my little walk-in closet sized section of the shop, which has about 800 square feet of retail space total.I know all about how olive oil is made, the differences in texture and flavor between the styles, the blends, the single varietals, the regional and seasonal differences, the chemical differences, etc. etc.Most people who walk in to my section have little to no idea about most of what I know, so if I were to ask them, "What flavor qualities are you looking for in an olive oil", I would often get a blank look or an "I didn't know there was such a difference" comment in response.My point of telling you this story is to illustrate that if you don't have a certain level of expertise and knowledge in a subject, you can't "think outside the box".You are just ignorant of the subject.This message has been edited by schrafinator, 09-21-2004 09:46 AM

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I am talking about the data that is not collected as of yet, plus the things we just don't know.

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But what you are doing is refusing to take in the data we do have, right now.If we follow your logic, then we can never make any determination about anything, ever.According to you, we could never say that matter is made up of atoms, because someday we just might learn that it isn't. Do we ignore all the data on matter and atoms that we do have?

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Is speciating a fact also?

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Yes.We have directly observed speciation both in the lab and in the field.Our inferred evidence of speciation from both genetic and fossil evidence is very abundant.Speciation is a big chunk of the evidence, the facts, that supports the Theory of Evolution.Remember, the theory is an explanatatory framework for the evidence, the facts.

I'll deal with this question, as others have dealt with the other:

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What species have we witnessed forst hand to change?

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Mostly these have been bacteria, insects, small fish, and plants, as these species have relatively rapid generational turnover.Here's a link to a list, and I have excerpted an example.http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/speciation.html"Three species of wildflowers called goatsbeards were introduced to the United States from Europe shortly after the turn of the century. Within a few decades their populations expanded and began to encounter one another in the American West. Whenever mixed populations occurred, the species interbred (hybridizing) producing sterile hybrid offspring. Suddenly, in the late forties two new species of goatsbeard appeared near Pullman, Washington. Although the new species were similar in appearance to the hybrids, they produced fertile offspring. The evolutionary process had created a separate species that could reproduce but not mate with the goatsbeard plants from which it had evolved."Here's another list of more speciation events:Observed Instances of SpeciationThis message has been edited by schrafinator, 09-24-2004 04:19 PM