
Originally Posted by
Spiny Norman
... and if you re-read what I said, my point is that the statement that the data was "concerning things that happened in the distant past" is not a statement about observation but is rather a statement about assumptions and conclusions; i.e. it draws conclusions based on a whole host of other assumptions. The observation itself is incapable of drawing a conclusion about the distant past, although if the observation (and accompanying written records) extended for long enough it might extend some centuries or even millenia into the past.
Nope you are still confused. You are saying that no observation can be valid unless it has been directly observed by a human and recorded at the time it happened. If this has not happened then we are talking about assumptions and conclusions and not fact at all.
However, as THE points out this is just the problem of how do you know that reality is real? Everything is just your interpretation of sensory input and therefore you have no direct experience of an objective reality. The same goes for any potential observer who may have recorded some event in the past and recorded it.
While this is a very convenient position for you to adopt since human records only go back some thousands of years however science is not constrained to the straitjacket you try to impose on it. We can observe geological features, date them and even provide explanations as to their origin. We talk of glacial valleys and fjords, flood plains, etc. We are able to observe mineralised cavities in rocks preserving the imprints of animals long since extinct and thanks to the geological column able to date them and have a very mainstream theory of ages and development of life on earth going back billions of years. You might not like it since it clashes with your deeply held religious convictions however it is just good science.
I have mentioned before the IAP which is a council of the Science Academies for all over the globe who released a statement on the teaching of evolution. You can read more about the IAP here
http://www.interacademies.net/CMS/About.aspx
In the statement they say...
We agree that the following evidence-based facts about the origins and evolution of the Earth and of life on this planet have been established by numerous observations and independently derived experimental results from a multitude of scientific disciplines. Even if there are still many open questions about the precise details of evolutionary change, scientific evidence has never contradicted these results:
1. In a universe that has evolved towards its present configuration for some 11 to 15 billion years, our Earth formed approximately 4.5 billion years ago.
2. Since its formation, the Earth – its geology and its environments – has changed under the effect of numerous physical and chemical forces and continues to do so.
3. Life appeared on Earth at least 2.5 billion years ago. The evolution, soon after, of photosynthetic organisms enabled, from at least 2 billion years ago, the slow transformation of the atmosphere to one containing substantial quantities of oxygen. In addition to the release of the oxygen that we breathe, the process of photosynthesis is the ultimate source of fixed energy and food upon which human life on the planet depends.
4. Since its first appearance on Earth, life has taken many forms, all of which continue to evolve, in ways which palaeontology and the modern biological and biochemical sciences are describing and independently confirming with increasing precision. Commonalities in the structure of the genetic code of all organisms living today, including humans, clearly indicate their common primordial origin.
Sixty-seven member academies endorsed the statement. This is certainly well-accepted and uncontroversial in scientific circles. However, this is not the case when religious beliefs get in the way of reason.