“Since the Theory of Evolution is in the business of explaining the past and present rather than predicting the future”
Ouch! I hope not! That makes it sound awful! Theories should be consistent with existing observations—sure—but a bigger challenge for them comes in predicting new observations before they are made.
I think the key is that theories don’t predict the future at all.
They predict observations.
Because of my model, I expect to see X under the given conditions. If I test for X, and I do not find it, this is evidence that my model is wrong. If I test for X and find it, this is evidence that my model is correct.
This says nothing about the future or past, only what you have and have not observed yet, and what you expect to observe next (which can be about the future or past, it doesn’t matter).
There is at least one rather specialised area in which theory offers predictions—evolution of communities. It’s like, ‘when true grasses appeared, they made, through having some novel features, created grasslands. They circumvented successions that would lead to preexistent plant habitats; in the beginning, they were weeds compared to the rest of vegetation. Nowadays, we have a group of species that spread widely, are considered weeds and share ecological similarity, not [relatively recent] common ancestor. We predict that in future, these weeds will form habitats through disruption of current eco networks.’ Admittedly, this is hard to observe.
“Since the Theory of Evolution is in the business of explaining the past and present rather than predicting the future”
Ouch! I hope not! That makes it sound awful! Theories should be consistent with existing observations—sure—but a bigger challenge for them comes in predicting new observations before they are made.
I think the key is that theories don’t predict the future at all.
They predict observations.
Because of my model, I expect to see X under the given conditions. If I test for X, and I do not find it, this is evidence that my model is wrong. If I test for X and find it, this is evidence that my model is correct.
This says nothing about the future or past, only what you have and have not observed yet, and what you expect to observe next (which can be about the future or past, it doesn’t matter).
There is at least one rather specialised area in which theory offers predictions—evolution of communities. It’s like, ‘when true grasses appeared, they made, through having some novel features, created grasslands. They circumvented successions that would lead to preexistent plant habitats; in the beginning, they were weeds compared to the rest of vegetation. Nowadays, we have a group of species that spread widely, are considered weeds and share ecological similarity, not [relatively recent] common ancestor. We predict that in future, these weeds will form habitats through disruption of current eco networks.’ Admittedly, this is hard to observe.