[Serious] Literal and Not Literal

[John 6IX Breezy]

Semantic equivocation.  That isn’t -all- the possible relationships between them.  The theory has excluded all but three, in your retelling.

If we replace the cats with letters A B and C we get the following combinations:

AB - C
A - BC
AC - B

I personally don't see any other possible combinations for that phylogeny, but if there is one the theory has not excluded it. Perhaps in the future someone else will forward that hypothesis as well (maybe they already have and I simply haven't come across it).

[Mister Agenda]

quote='John 6IX Breezy' pid='1931716' dateline='1568121505']
How do you falsify a theory that predicts every possible outcome for the relationship between lions, tigers, and jaguars? [/quote]

Every possible outcome if the theory of evolution is correct. Outcomes that don't depend on common descent aren't included. If one occurs, you've falsified at least part of evolution. The theory will have to be revised to account for the new information, or possibly scrapped if the evidence is too contradictory, for example if it were to turn out that lemurs are more closely related genetically to bananas than gorillas.

Evolution is defining the 'possibility space', if you accept that those are the only possibilities, you're accepting at least one of the premises of evolution.

[The Grand Nudger]

You’ve already excluded all but three possible letters (of an already exclusive) alphabet.

It’s the same thing all over again, and I still don’t understand the applicability to either of the two things you offered for context.

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Just as a correction to the above, evolutionary biology doesn’t actually rule out multiple instances of life having arisen, unrelated.

It notes common genetics in all known life, and the known mechanism for acquiring common genetics. If we found disparate genetics, or something meaningfully not genetic, not like us and the rest....that wouldn’t effect our populations explanation.

We would still conclude common descent between ourselves and other apes....and between cats, we would simply acknowledge that whatever that new life was....it doesn’t seem to be related to us.

Theories are more resilient than hypothesis, more minor addendums than wholesale revision or rejection. The common descent of species with related genetics is an observation that no observation of an unrelated species without common genetics can effect.

This is part of what we call the laws of heredity. Not a theory or a hypothesis. This is why I consider this diversion to be a doomed objection. It’s use more relevant to topic than its contention.

[John 6IX Breezy]

Just as a correction to the above, evolutionary biology doesn’t actually rule out multiple instances of life having arisen, unrelated.

Sadly, I agree. The theory has no issue with assuming abiogenesis occurred multiple times and attributing any lack of common descent to the organisms evolving from multiple lines of common ancestry. We already know it has no problem with organs evolving multiple times and themselves not sharing a common descent (human eye vs octopus I believe).

But none of that really matters, because most of its phylogenetic hypothesis are not verifiable anyway.

[The Grand Nudger]

Seems like genetics narrowed it down to three, even in your example.

Genetics was a game changer. It turned what many had proposed as hypothesis into observable facts.....even with an absurd presentist requirement invoked. Mostly because it told them what they were looking for and where to find it.

That’s how we can know that two kids share a father, and how we know that the relationship between the three listed is necessarily constrained.

What we still don’t know, is the application of this objection to literalism or the proffered context you offered. We could always make another “biology is wrong and unscientific and I’ll tell you why” thread if we’re never going to get to that point.

[John 6IX Breezy]

Seems like genetics narrowed it down to three, even in your example.

It can narrow it down to one hypothesis, and that's still not a substitute for verification. But at least in that scenario Acrobat, and everyone else, won't have to worry about choosing between alternative explanations.

[The Grand Nudger]

If you could narrow it down to one, then it seems that not all explanations are equal after all. You also seem to be ignoring that observations of genetics literally are time machines that can look into our hereditary past. We don’t have to be in the delivery room or possess some HG Wells themed leather chair to verify paternity.

This makes the objections application even more cryptic.

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I’m trying to make sense of how all of this fits...and all I can come up with is that you maintain that low information deciders who place novel restrictions might, effectively, pick whatever they like from three explanations they are unqualified to competently assess. So unqualified that they selectively acknowledge their own criteria, even. For example the insistence that something be verifiable combined with a practiced ignorance of it being so.

Is that the thrust? If so,I agree...but we don’t need to object to biology to get there.

[John 6IX Breezy]

If you could narrow it down to one, then it seems that not all explanations are equal after all.  You also seem to be ignoring that observations of genetics literally are time machines that can look into our hereditary past.  We don’t have to be in the delivery room or possess some HG Wells themed leather chair to verify paternity.

I think you may be overestimating the role of genetics in phylogenies.

[The Grand Nudger]

The titles of your references alone would seem to make that objection ludicrous on its face.

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References: 
Warren, J., O’Brien, Stephen. (1977). Phylogenetic reconstruction of the Felidae using 16S rRNA and NADH-5 mitochondrial genes. Journal of Molecular Evolution 44: S98–S116.
Mattern, M. Y., and McLennan, D. A. (2000). Phylogeny and speciation of felids. Cladistics 16: 232–253.
Warren, J., Eizirik, E., et al. (2006). The late Miocene radiation of modern Felidae: A genetic assessment. Science 311: 73–77.

[John 6IX Breezy]

The titles of your references alone would seem to make that objection ludicrous on its face.

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Well I agree; calling genetics a literal time machine, and implying it verifies phylogenies in the same way it does paternity, seems to be contradicted by the titles of three separate papers using genetics to arrive at three different conclusion.

Phylogenies make use of molecular inferences and still remain hypothesis.