[Doctor Stochastic]

Yes, but what we see are lots of stars at different ages rather than a single star observed over a long period of time.

It's like examining a bunch of people and inferring that one proceeds from being a baby to an oldster. It's not too hard.

[donh]

Yes, but what we see are lots of stars at different ages rather than a single star observed over a long period of time.

How is that different from observing lots of fossils, and lining them up by morphological similarity to observe that the morphological sequence matches the chronological sequence and bridging the gaps in the story by assumption?