(December 25, 2019 at 11:34 pm)John 6IX Breezy Wrote:(December 25, 2019 at 11:15 pm)Paleophyte Wrote: It's basic scientific method that hypotheses must be testable.
Agreed; I don't mind calling phylogenies unscientific. But since they are testable in theory, not in practice, they remain technically falsifiable and scientific.
And just like that the horseshit reveals itself. The notion that entire fields of science are based on the sort of unscientific rubbish that Breezy describes is conspiracy theory at its finest. It's just a few epicycles short of a flat earth. In fact, neither of his statements are true.
Phylogenetic trees are trivially easy to test and falsify. It's a remedial exercise in any second year evolution course and asking Google for "How to Test Phylogenetic Trees" will net you an unsurprising number of second year students trying to get you to do their homework. If this was as impossible as Breezy suggests then we'd be unable to falsify the rubbish from ages past that grouped fish and whales together, untangle the paraphyletic horror that is "yeast", or uncover the fascinatingly indecisive evolution of the tortoises.
If "Phylogenies are only a hypothesis" sounds hauntingly familiar it's no coincidence. It is first kin to "Evolution is only a theory" and is uttered by the same knuckle-dragging, bible-thumpers who have yet to discover the 20th century. If you've taken grade school science then you already know what we call a well-tested hypothesis.