Why is evolution unbelievable?

[Clairvoyance]

Do you even know what a dog is? We bred wolves into poodles in just a few thousands years...

How much more change do you think could happen if we let it go for millions of years?

 

[miamited]

Hi clairvoyance,

You ask: Why is evolution unbelievable?

I can't speak for anyone else, but I can certainly tell you why it is unbelievable for me. Basically, it boils down to me being convicted, I believe by the Holy Spirit within me, that it just isn't the truth.

One of the reasons that I don't believe it is the truth is because I believe that God through His Holy Spirit and His word, have given me the understanding of what is going on in this realm that God has created. As I understand the Scriptures, there was a point in time in which God chose to create another realm of living creatures apart from the angelic realm that He had created. He set out and spoke into existence all that is a part of this realm. From the earth and all that is in and upon it to the expanse of the heavens and all that is in it. He merely created it all out of nothing but His power and desire to create it. But He did create it all for a purpose. That purpose being to create a living creature that He called man to live in it. He built for us a perfect home and then once it was completed He created the living creature, man, to live in it.

But that was not the end of His purpose in creating this realm. The end is what we read about in the Revelation of Jesus. That there will be a day that God is going to judge all men that have come as a result of His creating and for those who have believed, understood and accepted the truth and have, because of that truth, chosen to love and honor Him, He will grant eternal life and His promise is that that eternal life will be an idyllic life.

So, for me, just the idea that there are millions and billions of years of history attached to the past ages of this realm seems utter nonsense.

God bless you.
In Christ, Ted

 

[ChetSinger]

Do you even know what a dog is? We bred wolves into poodles in just a few thousands years...

How much more change do you think could happen if we let it go for millions of years?

One reason I don't believe we came from apes is because when I read Genesis I see man's special creation from the dust of the earth. And I see a human timeline that goes back 6,000 years.

There are a plethora of world views available to me. But since only Christ offers me eternal life it will be Christ who has my allegiance.

 

[frogman2x]

Do you even know what a dog is? We bred wolves into poodles in just a few thousands years...

That is because they are basically after its kind.

>>How much more change do you think could happen if we let it go for millions of years?

There can be no biological change from one species to another. For a species to develop a charcteistic that would make it a new species one of its parents must have had the gene for that characteristic. Werer did the doglike animal get the gene for fins, a blowhole and a flapper.?

What is harder to explain is how did the first life form(and that is only a guess and not a scienific one) that did not have bones, did not need bones and did not have a gene for bones, ever produce a kid with bones.

kermit

 

[Resha Caner]

Do you even know what a dog is? We bred wolves into poodles in just a few thousands years...

How much more change do you think could happen if we let it go for millions of years?

That's exactly the problem. No one knows how much change is possible. What doesn't seem to be taught is that theories opposing Darwin were proposed - even during Darwin's lifetime. And alternatives are still being considered today. Biologists aren't quite as locked in to a specific theory as creationist strawman arguments tend to make it (Don't get me wrong, though. I believe God created life.). One of the proposed alternatives of Darwin's time was called "species stabilization" and there was evidence to support it.

I won't go so far as to say it disproved evolution - I don't think that's even possible. But, if you ask biologists about species stabilization, I'll bet you'll find they're familiar with it, and think it is viable under certain conditions.

So, what is species stabilization? It is the idea that the biological makeup of a species puts limits on how much it can change. Once a certain amount of change occurs, only sterile children are produced and the species starts to head toward extinction. So, while dogs have many diverse breeds, at some point they may not be able to change any further. And, since dogs are still dogs, that would mean a "descent of species" idea would be invalid.

Now, as I implied earlier, their are several different versions of species stabilization. Modern biology only accepts limited species stabilization. In other words, they still think evolution is possible. The problem is, no one has yet established the true nature of species stabilization.

With that said, this is only an example where the devil is in the details. I think there are higher level issues that are more relevant to this discussion.

 

[Clairvoyance]

There can be no biological change from one species to another. For a species to develop a charcteistic that would make it a new species one of its parents must have had the gene for that characteristic.

As an amateur biologist, I can tell you that speciation does not require any particular "characteristic" to form. A new species arises when the daughter population becomes so different from the parent population that the two groups can no longer successfully interbred. This is why lions and tigers can sometimes produce offspring but not very often... They are undergoing speciation. We can see this all the time in "ring species".

Werer did the doglike animal get the gene for fins, a blowhole and a flapper.?

Species get genes because of mutation and selection. The population mutates and if the mutation happens to be beneficial then it will be naturally selected and passed on to subsequent generation. For example: if a population of dog-like animals living near the water happened to mutate into having webbed feet, they might be able to swim faster to catch fish and thus pass on the genes for making webbed feet to their offspring. Eventually you would have an entire population of amphibious dogs!

What is harder to explain is how did the first life form(and that is only a guess and not a scienific one) that did not have bones, did not need bones and did not have a gene for bones, ever produce a kid with bones.

Abiogenesis is a tough question because, you are right, we don't have any fossils that far back in time. Single celled organisms don't fossilize very well. However, the question about how life first appeared has nothing to do with evolution. That's more a chemistry and physics question.

 

[Clairvoyance]

That's exactly the problem. No one knows how much change is possible.

Well the fossil record shows that a lot of change is possible and modern genetics has yet to find any limit on how much DNA can mutate. I don't know why you would assume that there is some arbitrary limit on how much genes can mutate. I don't see any evidence that there is a limit.

Chickens still have a gene buried in their DNA for making teeth... But no recent chicken species has teeth so this suggests that they inherited it from a very ancient ancestor.

Likewise humans still have the genes for making tails suggesting that we inherited it from our ancestors.

So even if you don't believe the fossil record, DNA is highly suggestive of common ancestry. Nothing we see makes sense without it.

 

[dvdscott]

Ehh Evolution is pretty hard to believe in. If DNA being highly suggestive of common ancestry is true, then that means that all creation has the same creator at some point. That creator? God.

I dont believe that Humans were just spontaneously breeded/evolved by millions of years of evolution. All creation, from Humans to animals to DNA to molecules all the way down to atoms, are all very complex forms of creation that had to have been designed by some intelligent being at some point IMO. God is pretty much the best explanation to creation that we have IMO. It's the same thing as The Big Bang Theory. Even if you wanted me to believe that there was an explosion that started the universe, who or what created that explosion? Who or what created the elements that contributed to that explosion?

 

[Resha Caner]

Well the fossil record shows that a lot of change is possible and modern genetics has yet to find any limit on how much DNA can mutate. I don't know why you would assume that there is some arbitrary limit on how much genes can mutate. I don't see any evidence that there is a limit.

You must have missed what I said in my post. There is a long history of evidence. One of the first to find evidence for the fixity of species was Hermon Bumpus and his study of sparrows. Then there is recent research by Allen and by Galis.

I was trying to be open in stating that no limit has yet been established. I do find it interesting, however, that my evolutionist friends constantly remind me not to argue from the exception, but from the rule. Given that in general the fossil record doesn't show change but stasis (i.e. a species remains largely unchanged until it disappears from the record to be replaced by another), and given fixity evidence exists, it seems that is the rule we should start from, not the exceptions.

So even if you don't believe the fossil record, DNA is highly suggestive of common ancestry. Nothing we see makes sense without it.

A question I've asked many times of others. What doesn't make sense? For every example I've been given, I saw nothing that made evolution a necessary conclusion, and many of the biologists I've discussed it with agreed. Again, I don't take that as a concession or a falsification of evolution. But it is refreshing when they admit they have no examples that require an underlying evolutionary theory in order to make sense of the data.

- - -

But I thought your question was what makes it hard to accept evolution. I didn't think this was to be a debate over the "better" theory. So, I gave you some of my reasons for not accepting it.

 

[Dunban]

Because bananas. That is why.

 

[Papias]

Resha wrote:

One of the proposed alternatives of Darwin's time was called "species stabilization" and there was evidence to support it.

So, what is species stabilization? It is the idea that the biological makeup of a species puts limits on how much it can change. Once a certain amount of change occurs, only sterile children are produced and the species starts to head toward extinction. So, while dogs have many diverse breeds, at some point they may not be able to change any further. And, since dogs are still dogs, that would mean a "descent of species" idea would be invalid.

Um, I've looked around, and I haven't seen any evidence for this. It sounds like the old creationist saw of species being fixed (which is so silly that even many creationists are now embarrassed that creationists argued for it).

Please post some real evidence, or at least be more clear about what you mean. There are no "limits" on evolution, except perhaps in creationists minds.

That's exactly the problem. No one knows how much change is possible.

The evolution from fish to human is extremely well documented. 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: The Scientific Case for Common Descent Are you saying that somehow there is significant doubt about that amount of change being possible, among the experts?


Clairvoyance, welcome to the fora! Even at just 21, you have already impressed me. Do you also already know about our fused chromosome 2 (48 to 46), our lost gulop gene, and the vagus nerve in the giraffe?

Blessings to all-

Papias

 

[Resha Caner]

Please post some real evidence, or at least be more clear about what you mean. There are no "limits" on evolution, except perhaps in creationists minds.

Your reply gives the impression you didn't read everything I said, so I'm not sure you know what I'm referring to. I asked an evolutionary biologist if there was any continuing work in the area of the fixity of species. Her answer was yes, and she provided 2 citations:

"Differences in the selection response of serially repeated color pattern characters: Standing variation, development, and evolution"
Cerisse E Allen, Patrícia Beldade, Bas J Zwaan and Paul M Brakefield
BMC Evolutionary Biology 2008, 8:94

"Why Do Almost All Mammals Have Seven Cervical Vertebrae? Developmental Constraints, Hox Genes, and Cancer"
Frietson Galis
Journal of Experimental Zoology 285:19–26 (1999)

It was my understanding from the discussion with her that opinions on fixity have reached a point where many biologists are now rejecting the idea of UCA. I think I still have her reference on that as well if you would like me to try to dig it up.

Are you saying that somehow there is significant doubt about that amount of change being possible, among the experts?

Well, based on the above, it seems many are starting to think some limits exist. IMO the definition of evolution continues to narrow. But I wouldn't use the word "doubt" to describe the views of evolutionary biologists.

Again, this was a reply to the OP regarding some of the reasons I find evolution hard to accept (depending on what the OP thinks evolution is).

The evolution from fish to human is extremely well documented.

Has it been observed?

 

[gluadys]

Your reply gives the impression you didn't read everything I said, so I'm not sure you know what I'm referring to. I asked an evolutionary biologist if there was any continuing work in the area of the fixity of species. Her answer was yes, and she provided 2 citations:

"Differences in the selection response of serially repeated color pattern characters: Standing variation, development, and evolution"
Cerisse E Allen, Patrícia Beldade, Bas J Zwaan and Paul M Brakefield
BMC Evolutionary Biology 2008, 8:94

"Why Do Almost All Mammals Have Seven Cervical Vertebrae? Developmental Constraints, Hox Genes, and Cancer"
Frietson Galis
Journal of Experimental Zoology 285:19–26 (1999)

It was my understanding from the discussion with her that opinions on fixity have reached a point where many biologists are now rejecting the idea of UCA. I think I still have her reference on that as well if you would like me to try to dig it up.

Please do, if you still have it. I am wondering to what extent your understanding of the conversation is an example of confirmation bias--of hearing what you wanted to hear rather than what was actually said.

Neither of the papers provides a basis for disputing common ancestry. Indeed, since like most scientific papers, they are focused on how a detail of evolution works, I would not expect them to.

Well, based on the above, it seems many are starting to think some limits exist.

There are limits but not the sort typically proposed by anti-evolutionists. Canalization, developmental constraints, species stabilization & so on are completely consistent with common ancestry and cladistic phylogeny. The limits are brought in historically rather than being an a priori given. That is why, historically, aquatic, gill-using fish could, over time become terrestrial vertebrates, but when terrestrial vertebrates reverted to marine life, it was as reptiles and mammals i.e. air breathers with tetrapod skeletons and other features of their contemporary terrestrial cousins, rather than reverting to ancestral fish-type traits. Development constraints originating in their earlier evolutionary history could not be undone again.

In fact, one of the papers you cited gives an interesting example of this. In reptiles and birds, the number of cervical vertebra is variable and often an indicator of species difference; but in mammals it is pretty much fixed at seven vertebrae no matter what the length of neck (mouse or giraffe). The researchers conclude that something happened in the early history of mammals that did not happen in the history of reptiles and birds to stabilize the number of cervical vertebrae. It appears to be a connection with the onset of cancer especially in early childhood. (That is as much as I could get from the abstract anyway.) The constraint itself then is a product of evolutionary change.

 

[frogman2x]

Please do, if you still have it. I am wondering to what extent your understanding of the conversation is an example of confirmation bias--of hearing what you wanted to hear rather than what was actually said.

Neither of the papers provides a basis for disputing common ancestry. Indeed, since like most scientific papers, they are focused on how a detail of evolution works, I would not expect them to.

The only provable common ancestry is after it kind. Evolution is b iologically impossible.

[qiote]There are limits but not the sort typically proposed by anti-evolutionists. Canalization, developmental constraints, species stabilization & so on are completely consistent with common ancestry and cladistic phylogeny. The limits are brought in historically rather than being an a priori given. That is why, historically, aquatic, gill-using fish could, over time become terrestrial vertebrates, but when terrestrial vertebrates reverted to marine life, it was as reptiles and mammals i.e. air breathers with tetrapod skeletons and other features of their contemporary terrestrial cousins, rather than reverting to ancestral fish-type traits. Development constraints originating in their earlier evolutionary history could not be undone again.

Maybe yo u could explain how gill-using fish with no gene for a a Vertebrte could produce a kid with a vertebrate.

In fact, one of the papers you cited gives an interesting example of this. In reptiles and birds, the number of cervical vertebra is variable and often an indicator of species difference; but in mammals it is pretty much fixed at seven vertebrae no matter what the length of neck (mouse or giraffe). The researchers conclude that something happened in the early history of mammals that did not happen in the history of reptiles and birds to stabilize the number of cervical vertebrae. It appears to be a connection with the onset of cancer especially in early childhood. (That is as much as I could get from the abstract anyway.) The constraint itself then is a product of evolutionary change.

The always give examples but they never explain the science that makes it possible.

kermit

 

[gluadys]

Please do, if you still have it. I am wondering to what extent your understanding of the conversation is an example of confirmation bias--of hearing what you wanted to hear rather than what was actually said.

Neither of the papers provides a basis for disputing common ancestry. Indeed, since like most scientific papers, they are focused on how a detail of evolution works, I would not expect them to.

I see you haven't quite managed the quote function yet. Let me help.

When you open the message pane to compose a reply, my post already has an automatic start and end quote tag. The automatic start-quote tag from your post is visible above. You tried to insert an end-quote tag, but you forgot the [/] in front of the word "quote".

After your reply to this paragraph, your new start-quote tag did not work because you misspelled "quote" as "qiote" and again you forgot the [/] before "quote" in the end-quote tag.

The last paragraph worked as it ought to because you spelled the start-quote tag correctly and used the end-quote tag that had already been automatically inserted.

So I think you basically have the routine. But 1. check your spelling. Tags that are misspelled don't work. 2. Always include the backslash in the end-quote tag.

The only provable common ancestry is after it kind.

Depending on what you mean by "kind" I might agree. Biologists use the term "clade" (meaning "branch" like a branch on a tree). Biologists agree that no species can have ancestry from a different branch than the one it is on. However, several smaller branches can stem from the same larger branch. Sounds like a good synonym of "kind" to me.

Of course, all the branches stem from the same trunk and root.

[qiote]There are limits but not the sort typically proposed by anti-evolutionists. Canalization, developmental constraints, species stabilization & so on are completely consistent with common ancestry and cladistic phylogeny. The limits are brought in historically rather than being an a priori given. That is why, historically, aquatic, gill-using fish could, over time become terrestrial vertebrates, but when terrestrial vertebrates reverted to marine life, it was as reptiles and mammals i.e. air breathers with tetrapod skeletons and other features of their contemporary terrestrial cousins, rather than reverting to ancestral fish-type traits. Development constraints originating in their earlier evolutionary history could not be undone again.[ quote]


Maybe yo u could explain how gill-using fish with no gene for a a Vertebrte could produce a kid with a vertebrate.

First, all gill-breathing fish except sharks and rays have vertebrae. Most fish are vertebrates. Sharks have skeletons made of cartilage.

There are other marine creatures which have only cranial bones with no spine or only a partial spine.

All of these are know as chordates because all of them, at least in embryonic life, and a few in adult life as well, support the dorsal nerve with a notochord. So we could consider that one of these spineless chordates rather than a fish.

Could any one of them give birth to a creature with a vertebral column? Of course not.

But a population of them could, over many generations, have descendants with vertebral columns.

The always give examples but they never explain the science that makes it possible.

The science that explains it is called population genetics. It covers the origin of genetic diversity not originally present in the population, how the new diversity gets distributed through all or part of the population, how the population divides into sub-groups which no longer breed with each other, and so become different species.

There is a lot of detail to it that can't be covered simply in a forum post, but you can take time to study it if you like.

 

[Resha Caner]

Please do, if you still have it. I am wondering to what extent your understanding of the conversation is an example of confirmation bias--of hearing what you wanted to hear rather than what was actually said.

Neither of the papers provides a basis for disputing common ancestry. Indeed, since like most scientific papers, they are focused on how a detail of evolution works, I would not expect them to.

I often wonder if the same confirmation bias happens on the other side as well. I tried to frame my reply very carefully in order to note that evolutionists didn't see those results as any refutation of evolution. The comment on UCA referred to other papers, not the ones I cited. So, no, there is nothing questioning UCA in those papers. The only point of these was to note that known limitations do exist, and you seem to agree. I'll try to dig up the other reference for you.

So, again I will say it. It's not that evolutionists have "doubts", or that I can turn these papers on their head. It is simply 2 things:

1) The evolutionary biologists that I've talked to are very forthcoming about the open questions in evolution. They don't trumpet the "EVOLUTION IS A PROVEN FACT!" nonsense heard so often in these forums. In fact, they show an interest in investigating some of those open questions, and accept that it may cause a radical change in thinking. (But don't read into this point that I declare some kind of creationist victory. I simply appreciate the openness.)

2) I think some of these open questions are very important, and that is why I don't accept evolution. Note the emphasis is mine that these are important questions, not the people I talked to. But that's what was asked. Why don't I believe it? It doesn't matter if other people don't think they're important. I do.

 

[gluadys]

I often wonder if the same confirmation bias happens on the other side as well. I tried to frame my reply very carefully in order to note that evolutionists didn't see those results as any refutation of evolution. The comment on UCA referred to other papers, not the ones I cited. So, no, there is nothing questioning UCA in those papers. The only point of these was to note that known limitations do exist, and you seem to agree. I'll try to dig up the other reference for you.

So, again I will say it. It's not that evolutionists have "doubts", or that I can turn these papers on their head. It is simply 2 things:

1) The evolutionary biologists that I've talked to are very forthcoming about the open questions in evolution. They don't trumpet the "EVOLUTION IS A PROVEN FACT!" nonsense heard so often in these forums. In fact, they show an interest in investigating some of those open questions, and accept that it may cause a radical change in thinking. (But don't read into this point that I declare some kind of creationist victory. I simply appreciate the openness.)

2) I think some of these open questions are very important, and that is why I don't accept evolution. Note the emphasis is mine that these are important questions, not the people I talked to. But that's what was asked. Why don't I believe it? It doesn't matter if other people don't think they're important. I do.

Thanks for this excellent response.

Of course there are many open questions in evolutionary biology. However, some questions are closed. That evolution is a fact of nature is an issue that is closed,scientifically. No scientist in the field doubts that any more than any physicist doubts the existence of gravity.

That Darwin was essentially right about natural selection is a closed issue. (An open issue is how many other processes such as genetic drift and epigenetics also influence change in species and the relative importance of each.)

Universal Common Descent is pretty much a closed issue. Open phylogenetics issues tend to be about the details of relationships, not the interconnection of all extant life.

One of the most important limitations among those you refer to are those set by the genetic history of a species or clade. Once a group has completely separated from another, there is no going back. They will continue to diverge independently of each other and acquire character traits that subsequent evolution can not completely undo. And there is a lot of interest in looking at other sorts of limits that constrain evolutionary change as well. But none of them are of the sort that distinguish "kinds" in the creationist vocabulary or stand in the way of UCA.

When you hear people proclaiming the fact of evolution, they are referring to such basic closed issues. None of the live, open issues (and there are many) in evolutionary biology today casts doubt on these central facts.

 

[Papias]

gluadys, thanks for responding to earlier posts - you said many of things I would have. Resha - I agree with everything gluadys posted, she answered many of your questions. As pointed out, it was appreciated to post the papers you referred to. You had claimed there were real concerns by biologists positing limits to evolution and reasons to doubt UCA, and we agree that those papers do nothing of the sort, so if you want to maintain those two claims, we are still waiting for support for them.

To add to gluadys' last post,

Resha wrote:

So, again I will say it. It's not that evolutionists have "doubts", or that I can turn these papers on their head. It is simply 2 things:

1) The evolutionary biologists that I've talked to are very forthcoming about the open questions in evolution. They don't trumpet the "EVOLUTION IS A PROVEN FACT!" nonsense heard so often in these forums. In fact, they show an interest in investigating some of those open questions, and accept that it may cause a radical change in thinking. (But don't read into this point that I declare some kind of creationist victory. I simply appreciate the openness.)

As gluadys pointed out, it is undisputed among the experts that evolution (including UCA) is a proven fact. If you'd like to show that a consensus statement from the experts showing otherwise (or even that any doubts have grown), please post them.

2) I think some of these open questions are very important, and that is why I don't accept evolution. Note the emphasis is mine that these are important questions, not the people I talked to. But that's what was asked. Why don't I believe it? It doesn't matter if other people don't think they're important. I do.

Um, which open questions? The open questions I'm familiar with are ones like "in the evolution of mammals, did sexual selection start playing a role before 150 million years ago, or not until 100 million years ago?"

or "does genetic drift become irrelevant in populations greater than 2,000, or does it take a population of 10,000 to do so?"

The point is that they are questions about how evolution has worked, not about whether evolution happened or in any way doubting UCA. It's like the active questions in astronomy - they question some aspects of the motion of stars, but none question whether the earth is flat or spherical.

Creationists have, for decades at least, pointed to questions about how evolution worked as if they were questioning UCA, when they are not. It's so common a tactic that there are whole databases of mined quotes creationists have used to do it. I would like to humbly raise the possibility that you have heard creationists do exactly that, and not being an expert in the field, have sometimes been tricked by it.

Take your time. Look into it. Let us know if you think we can help.

In Christ's name-

Papias

 

[Resha Caner]

First, the reference I promised. The alternative to UCA that has been considered is called "convergent evolution", and it still seems to be an active area of research. Quite a few sources on it are readily available, but this is the one I was thinking of:

"Convergent evolution of gene circuits"
Conant and Wagner
Nature Genetics 34 (2003), 264-266.

Also, I'm going to be referencing a paper by Theobald (and its critique) in my reply to you:

"A formal test of the theory of universal common ancestry"
Douglas L. Theobald
Nature 465:13 (May 2010), 219-222.

"The common ancestry of life"
Eugene V Koonin, Yuri I Wolf
Koonin and Wolf Biology Direct 2010, 5:64.

However, some questions are closed. That evolution is a fact of nature is an issue that is closed,scientifically.

First, I'm going to nitpick on what you said. I don't doubt that evolutionary biologists have a high confidence level and give little if any consideration to some issues. But most professionals I have known steer away from calling it a fact. Ever since Popper, saying science has "proven" something is considered bad form. Rather, the statement would probably go something like:

The general consensus among biologists is that evolution has not been falsified.

There is an important distinction between a "fact" and something that has "not been falsified".

Universal Common Descent is pretty much a closed issue.

Based on the references I provided, I wouldn't think so. During the previous discussion I mentioned, I asked if anyone has ever attempted a falsification test on evolution. The answer was: Yes, Theobald has (the foregoing citation).

However, all the reviews I have found consider Theobald's attempt a failure. In fact, Koonin & Wolf (another of the foregoing citations) go so far as to suggest that the non-deterministic nature of evolution makes the construction of a good falsification test impropable ... which has been my argument for quite some time.

And according to good scientific practice, what do we call something for which no falsification test can be designed? An assumption.

 

[gluadys]

First, the reference I promised. The alternative to UCA that has been considered is called "convergent evolution", and it still seems to be an active area of research. Quite a few sources on it are readily available, but this is the one I was thinking of:

"Convergent evolution of gene circuits"
Conant and Wagner
Nature Genetics 34 (2003), 264-266.

Ah, I see the source of the confusion then. No, it is not the paper you are citing. It is simply your misunderstanding of what convergent evolution is.

Convergent evolution is the phenomenon of species who are not closely related to one another but nevertheless have astounding similarities to one another because they have adapted in similar ways to a similar environment.

A basic example is the streamlined form of teleost fish, mosasaurs and cetaceans. All responded to a marine environment with adaptations that were effectively dynamic in that environment. But none is a direct ancestor or closely related to the others in such a way that the adaptation could have been inherited one from the other.

However, "not closely related" does not equate to "not related at all". For example, although mosasaurs and cetaceans are on different branches of the amniote tree, they are both amniotes and so more closely related to each other than either is to fish. And fish, of course, are vertebrates, so more closely related to the other two than any of the three are to arthropods such as lobsters or beetles. IOW, convergent evolution takes place within an overall framework of universal common ancestry.

Also, I'm going to be referencing a paper by Theobald (and its critique) in my reply to you:

"A formal test of the theory of universal common ancestry"
Douglas L. Theobald
Nature 465:13 (May 2010), 219-222.

"The common ancestry of life"
Eugene V Koonin, Yuri I Wolf
Koonin and Wolf Biology Direct 2010, 5:64.

Yes, I remember reading both of these.

First, I'm going to nitpick on what you said. I don't doubt that evolutionary biologists have a high confidence level and give little if any consideration to some issues. But most professionals I have known steer away from calling it a fact. Ever since Popper, saying science has "proven" something is considered bad form. Rather, the statement would probably go something like:

The general consensus among biologists is that evolution has not been falsified.

Not quite. Your final statement would apply to the theory of evolution, not to observed evolutionary change. Observed evolutionary change (such as a shift of 3% in the alleles of a continuously reproducing population) is a fact.

But what drives this process of change? That is where the theory of evolution comes in. And that is where one would correctly state that the theory of evolution has not been falsified. Similarly, universal common ancestry is an inference from the theory, not a directly observed fact. So one would also correctly say of UCA that it has not been falsified.

In addition, Popper's own notions are themselves somewhat controversial. Stephen J. Gould has a great quote about the shifting lines between fact and theory especially when a theory is very well supported as evolution, natural selection and universal common ancestry are.

In science "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional consent."​

When I speak of "closed issues" in regard to evolution, I mean issues that fit his definition of "fact".

Based on the references I provided, I wouldn't think so. During the previous discussion I mentioned, I asked if anyone has ever attempted a falsification test on evolution. The answer was: Yes, Theobald has (the foregoing citation).

However, all the reviews I have found consider Theobald's attempt a failure. In fact, Koonin & Wolf (another of the foregoing citations) go so far as to suggest that the non-deterministic nature of evolution makes the construction of a good falsification test impropable ... which has been my argument for quite some time.

That is pretty much what I gleaned too. The basic problematic with very early life is that there is much more horizontal gene transfer and that tends to blur lineages and even render them meaningless. A single origin of eukaryotes is much better established. But that apparently did not occur during the first two billion years of life on earth.

And according to good scientific practice, what do we call something for which no falsification test can be designed? An assumption.

No, I wouldn't call it an assumption; a better term would be speculation.

You have to make an assumption in order to form a testable hypothesis. After all, what you are going to test is whether the assumption is probable.

One can speculate that there is a multiuniverse. But we can't test for that. So long as we recognize that we can't test for it, and therefore draw no conclusion, it remains a speculation. To conclude that there is or is not a multiverse would be an unwarranted assumption.

The case with universal common ancestry is different. We can't test for a multiverse because we have no way at all (at least not yet) to gather evidence or predict what evidence would support or falsify the concept.

But we have ample evidence that does support universal common ancestry. The concept of universal common ancestry allows scientists to make predictions about the past, present, and even to a limited extent, the future of evolutionary change and those predictions can be tested. To date, the results of such testing are overwhelmingly positive. So even if we come to the point that we have to rest with an inference for which a good definitive falsification test cannot be designed, the hypothesis of universal common ancestry is still well warranted by the evidence. Certainly to the point where it would be perverse to withhold provisional consent.