You apparently didn't look too closely as to how I defined "facts". Did you notice this sentence? "If we were to look at the lithographic fossils of Archeopteryx, we would see impressions of feathers. That is a fact." The feathers on the lithographic fossils on Archie are "repeatable observations". I never said that you have to repeat history.
In order to demonstrate the narrative of evolution theory,you would have to repeat what the theory claims to have happened.
The impressions of feathers do not say anything about whether the narrative of evolution theory is true or what other species the creature was related to.
We can and do study one-time events as long as those events leave us evidence we can all look at in the present. The narrative can be demonstrated to have happened because it left evidence in the present.
The genetic and structural similarities between species do not say anything about whether there was common descent between them and macro-evolution. If you don't know beforehand that the narrative happened,you cannot know that the things you examine are really evidence for it,because there is a more logical alternative. There could have been many species that originated separately,from which contemporary species have descended.
Think of the various CSI series on TV. They make a narrative of what happened in the past from facts. The facts (observations in the present) are used to demonstrate that the narrative happened. Evolution uses the same type of science as forensics.
The difference is that forensic detectives use evidence to connect crimes to people who are known to exist and whose whereabouts at certain times are traceable,whereas evolutionists use evidence to trace out lineages which cannot be known to have existed,because the reproductive links and compatibility between dead species cannot be observed.
I was talking about observations, not "explanations". If we are going to discuss, then you need to pay attention to what I am saying. Science restricts itself to intersubjective observations.
And I was contradicting your statement when I said that science restricts itself only to naturalistic explanations.
Intersubjectivity is a psychoanalytical concept.
The statement you made doens't make any sense. What does happen is that science is restricted to the "natural" component of an explanation. Christian belief is that God sustains all that is "natural". Nothing "natural" happens except by the will of God. Science can't test this supernatural component.
The fact that science cannot test the supernatural is besides the point.
Science is not limited to experimentation and conclusions drawn from it. There is also much speculation which cannot be verified. Explanations for the workings of nature ought to be logical,fitting effects to proper causes. And if an explanation that uses natural causes alone does not add up,we ought to have recourse to what else we know,or can know,about nature apart from scientific research,namely,God's power in it. If it is reasonable to believe that God is involved with the natural world,our knowledge of God and his relations with nature ought to be brought to bear upon our explanations.
You do realize you just contradicted yourself above, don't you?
Again, that is not what I said. I am talking about intersubjective observations. Everything you have stated involves objective, intersubjective observations.
Those theories involve much unverifiable and illogical speculation.
Actually, that is not the among the critieria of a successful theory. This is the heart of the scientific method:
"...what we learned in school about the scientific method can be reduced to two basic principles.
"1. All our theory, ideas, preconceptions, instincts, and prejudices about how things logically ought to be, how they in all fairness ought to be, or how we would prefer them to be, must be tested against external reality --what they *really* are. How do we determine what they really are? Through direct experience of the universe itself." Kitty Ferguson, The Fire in the Equations, pg. 38.
Direct experience and testing of physical things does not by itself determine what they are or what causation is involved. We know what really is through reason and logical thinking,as well as through sense experience and experimentation. The logic I am talking about takes into account sense experience and experimentation,but also corrects and criticizes them.
The idea that we can best know reality by sticking with empiricism and experimentation is itself a misguided preconception and prejudice. We are not closer to the truth of reality by suppressing reason and reducing knowledge to sense experience.
