How can a person test in reality that the ideas of evoltuion are valid?

I was wondering whether or not my acceptance of evolution as a fact was irrational or not. The evidence is there but I have not really examined all relevant evidence. Somehow I think to myself that evolution by natural selection is indeed a great probability.

To my mind, evidence for evolution of some kind is as good as factual.

The history of life on our Earth over three and a half billion years reveals a pattern. Over time, organisms do exhibit and undeniable tendency to increase in complexity. What is more, the more complex the new species, the less time it takes to appear in evolution.

Thus the most complex species, us, (not necessarily the most viable -- only time will tell) has taken only 0.001 billion years to evolve. In contrast, it took most of the evolutionary time scale (nearly three billion yeas) for single cells to become complex enough to form multicellular units.

Please visit my mini essay at. You can even discuss it.

Janos

Where are the evidence?

Where are the evidence?

I am no scientist, but accept that the evidence from fossil records and from the findings of genetics, is fairly conclusive.

Until creationism comes up with equally strong evidence to the contrary, the likelihood of "some kind of evolution" (i.e. not necessarly strick Darwinist) is the strongest possible explanation for the existence of life on earth.

I am not interested in Creationism.

I am devloping online learning resources for K-12.
For gifted stduents, we need to focus on critical thinking.
We have no problems for Math and Physics and most part of Biology,
except for the Theory of Evolution, in particular, the macro-evolution aspects.

We have searched various books and literature on paleontology and fossil records,
but finding any proof or evidence seems impossible! It is a pity textbooks do not
provide any references.

Papers or literature showing the scientific basis of interpreting radiometric dating
results are also impossible to find.

These days, with very user-friendly software (including 3D animation software like Maya used in movies), it is possible to morph anything to anything. You can morph a stone into man or a man into a tree. But we know that in reality, just because we can imagine a process happening is not evidence that there is a possibility of it happening.

The Impossible-Long-Dating Theorem

I am putting forward here a theorem which I call the "Impossible-Long-Dating Theorem" which states that it is impossible for us to date the age of anything beyond our individual or collective human experience. "Collective" means that data can be analysed beyond an individual's lifetime by other people in past or future generations. Any relationship between a measured variable and time must be calibrated in order for predictions to be valid. In other words, only interpolated data may be found to be reliable. Extrapolated data may in some imstance be reliable if they are very close to the calibrated range.

Take for instance, Newton's Law of Cooling. We know today that objects cool exponentially. In the past scientists who believed in evolution assumed a constant rate of cooling for the earth and estimated the earth to be about 10 millions years old asuming it cooled from a molten state. The method is scientific but the interpretation is not because the extrapolation is too far away to be of any reasonable validity.

In my younger days as a geotechnical engineer, and then later as a structural engineer, I learnt that it is very critical to interpret data correctly. As a geotechnical engineer, I had carried out many back-analyses of field data for loss-adjustors in slope failures which cause damage to properties. Most engineers simply look at conditions within a few hundred meters away, but mostly only a few meters away! For all the earth slope failures, I found that the "critical slip surfaces" occur due to imbalanced forces due to water pressure several kilometres away. Hence you need to look at the more global or "big picture" rather than having a narrow and myopic view.

As a structural engineer, I learnt about the mistakes that engineers do in estimating the strength of in-situ concrete using the ultra-sonic pulse velocity (UPV) instrument. We were warned during a conference on structural failures that we should only estimated the strength of in-situ concrete provided the reading falls within the calibrated range of the equipment.

We also learnt in Hooke's Law of Elasticity, that any linear elastic behaviour of materials has a limit. For steel and concrete, the design standards assume a linear relationship between stress and strain up to a certain limit, after which strain increases indefinitely at the specified stress limit.

In summary, any estimate of the age of the earth or fossil beyond the realm of human expereince and testing is unreliable.

The Theorem Of Impossible Event

Here I put forth another theorem which states that any event or process which is humanly imagined cannot occur unless it has been observed to occur within a specified context.

Lafayette:

I am not interested in Creationism.
...

Sorry, please educate me.

I understand that the Theory of Evolution cannot be tested. So it has to remain only a theory. But is there a testable alternative theory of how we, humans, have arrived here?

The word "theory" can mean many different things depending in the context of use.
Used loosely in non-scientific contexts, it means the opposite of "fact".
See: http://en.wikipedia.o...

If used in the scientific context, it has to be supported by experimental evidence.

I raised the issue of experimental evidence being required for evolution as a theory
in science because it is being taught as science in science text books as a fact.
Many scientific papers and literature also explicitly mention evolution as an
"undisputable fact". So now that we're devloping Biology lessons for high ability
or gifted students, we have a dilemma. The experimental evidence seems to be
very illusive. I thought it would be a very straight-forward thing to find this in
published journals about paleontology or fossil records and in radiometric dating.
These "original" publications are very critical. I am willing to pay for copies of
these publications.