”there is reason to believe” is a very low standard that falls short of what most people use in life. When there is no proof one way or the other, belief is a personal choice. But when one theory is systematically pushed against all others, I think it is normal for thinking people to subject it to critical scrutiny.
In any other area of life, we’d require this if we wanted to be objective. For example, when solving murders, the idea that they can only be committed by men (ie random mutstion and natural selection) might lead to problematic cases (ie wings) where there is no clear scenario that fits all the data.
One might question the underlying premise (all murders have always been commited by men) and suspect a woman. Suppose this leads to a bunch of plausible hypotheses that a woman committed the specific murder in question. But a trained “detective” could concoct lots of plausible-sounding just-so stories of how various men did it, instead.
In this situation, let’s take a step back and see what we have. We have just-so stories, with some connection of reality, because they have been selected out of possible stories to have that quality. We also have evidence against each story. Let’s say that in a specific case, all stories about men doing murders have a lot more evidence against them than the woman stories. What then?
The situation here is actually more empirical than neo-Darwinianism because we have compelling evidence and argument for men committing murders which we have observed. We know we have been able to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt many times. Whereas we have not been able to observe how speciation occurs in the vast, vast majority of (perhaps all) cases. We just know it occurs.
So to say that it occurs excludiveky by method X is simply a hypothesis. And you can’t prove the hypothesis by concocting fanficul just-so stories and claim victory because they have some connection to reality!
Perhaps the reason this isn’t scientific is because the stories have been selected to fit the conclusion, rather than being picked from the evidence in the environment. If you are exercising selection on the side of the story to such an extent, then you can find “reason to believe” anything anywhere. Just like a Marxist or a Freudian psychoanalyst. The theory is unfalsifiable!
Given how modern science is hyped up to the public, it's really hard to admit you don't know and _can't_ know.
And yet it's actually obvious to a careful thinker that we really can't know whether evolution occurs exclusively by established methods. We know we have CRISPR, so at least this hypothesis is not true today. How high is the possibility that CRISPR was performed by some mysterious entity in the past millions of years?
Not even talking about alien stuff -- is it really not possible at least that some other animal, eg. some form of dinosaur, had invented this technology and later got wiped out by some global cataclysm? They had hundreds of millions of years to do this.
Of course we don't have any evidence either way -- and for some reason Occam's Razor tells us that we can just assume the simpler story is the actual story. Even if, as mentioned, there's actually no evidence either way.
It is without doubt that the earth is home to a wide variety of life that procreates similar but not identical forms. Those forms which are more suitable for the present environment are on average more successful in procreating while others have fewer or if their differentiation is particularly negative have none or even fail to launch as it were.
We can observe especially in simple life with short generations accumulating changes. Claiming small changes don't accumulate would be like claiming water drips in a bucket but never fills up. There are plenty of arguments to be had about details and mechanics but there is no competing alternative to evolution. Do you disagree?
In any other area of life, we’d require this if we wanted to be objective. For example, when solving murders, the idea that they can only be committed by men (ie random mutstion and natural selection) might lead to problematic cases (ie wings) where there is no clear scenario that fits all the data.
One might question the underlying premise (all murders have always been commited by men) and suspect a woman. Suppose this leads to a bunch of plausible hypotheses that a woman committed the specific murder in question. But a trained “detective” could concoct lots of plausible-sounding just-so stories of how various men did it, instead.
In this situation, let’s take a step back and see what we have. We have just-so stories, with some connection of reality, because they have been selected out of possible stories to have that quality. We also have evidence against each story. Let’s say that in a specific case, all stories about men doing murders have a lot more evidence against them than the woman stories. What then?
The situation here is actually more empirical than neo-Darwinianism because we have compelling evidence and argument for men committing murders which we have observed. We know we have been able to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt many times. Whereas we have not been able to observe how speciation occurs in the vast, vast majority of (perhaps all) cases. We just know it occurs.
So to say that it occurs excludiveky by method X is simply a hypothesis. And you can’t prove the hypothesis by concocting fanficul just-so stories and claim victory because they have some connection to reality!
Perhaps the reason this isn’t scientific is because the stories have been selected to fit the conclusion, rather than being picked from the evidence in the environment. If you are exercising selection on the side of the story to such an extent, then you can find “reason to believe” anything anywhere. Just like a Marxist or a Freudian psychoanalyst. The theory is unfalsifiable!