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To: anguish
Of course this evidence can be falsified, just like DNA tests to establish paternity could, but that has yet to happen.

How? If the same phenomena occured in two species that are not believed to have shared a recent common ancestor then it could just as easily be chalked up to homoplasy. Common ancestry accommodates either phenomena but it certainly does not predict them and therefore cannot be falsified by their absence or confirmed by their presence. There is nothing wrong with a theory that can accomodate widely different results, but one can't turn around then and claim that one of those results is evidence for the theory.

Cordially,

601 posted on 05/06/2005 11:50:08 AM PDT by Diamond (Qui liberatio scelestus trucido inculpatus.)
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To: Diamond
If the same phenomena occured in two species that are not believed to have shared a recent common ancestor then it could just as easily be chalked up to homoplasy.
Easily? Even if the 14 insertions shown in the diagram were present in a bird (that itself unlikely), it would still be akin to a 1 in 10^117 chance that they were placed correctly. As it's science we're talking about, we don't have too much use for absolutes, but those odds come close :)
There is nothing wrong with a theory that can accomodate widely different results, but one can't turn around then and claim that one of those results is evidence for the theory
Fair enough. But the "different" results, in this case, are nowhere to be found, so the evidence holds.
603 posted on 05/06/2005 12:25:46 PM PDT by anguish (while science catches up.... mysticism!)
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