Why do people say an "explanation" is evidence? doesn't the selection of explanations require and necesitate evidence?

[strateguy632]

quote "the bone structure of forelimbs of whales, humans, birds, and dog... the pattern of bones is very similar." how can we explain the similarities?

"It's less likely that such similar structures would have evolved independently in each species, and more likely that the basic layout of bones was already present in a common ancestor of whales, humans, dogs, and birds." this explains the feature, selecting between two presumptions of evolution as interpretation but is not evidence of a common ancestor. yet is listed as evidence of evolution?

contrast a non evolution (because both were evolution above) explanation, "it is more likely that the creator preffered that bone structure for many species" would that "explanation" be evidence of a creator?

Updates

+1 y

dogs have 78 chromosomes therefore dog "ancestor" MUST have 78 and not the common ancestor of humans which must have had 46 chromosomes reproducing 23 each, like lima beans.

[goaded]

The explanation, the theory, is not the evidence, it's something that explains the evidence (in this case the structure of mammalian skeletons), without any evidence found to directly contradict it. It's testable, and it's the hypothesis with the fewest assumptions.

In the case of evolution, the initial evidence that lead Darwin and Wallace to propose the theory has been bolstered over 150 years by technology that they couldn't even have imagined, like DNA. (They deduced there must be a mechanism by which characteristics are passed from generation to generation with variation, but its taken generations to uncover how DNA works, and it turns out to match the structure of live at the macro level remarkably well.)

The God hypothesis makes massive assumptions (sentience without evolution, for example) and is utterly untestable. What evidence could possibly prove that there is no God, if it can all be "explained" away by saying "that's what God chose to do"?

[Astarlessnightsky]

Its the other way around bone structures and other features have been discovered and similarities have been described.

Whales and Dolphins are much more similiar to mammals on land than other fish in the water, like sharks.

So people tried to find explanations.

Dug up more and more bones and discovered animals that are like a whale and like a land mammal.

And than something in between, ...

So they figured there once was a land mammal that lived near the coast and slowly lived more and more in the ocean, the body adapted, legs became fins, and now we got modern whales which no longer need to step out of the water.

But bone structure of a whale and a bat and a giraffe and a mouse and a human, is still similiar as we all got one common ancestor, the base model which changed over billions of years into all these different creatures.

[strateguy632]

to @Astarlessnightsky your 4th paragraph is an explanation. "they figured there once was a land mammal that lived near the coast and slowly lived more and more in the ocean, the body adapted, legs became fins, and now we got modern whales which no longer need to step out of the water." but this would not be "evidence" that such a mammal had babies with varying numbers of chromosomes as a common "ancestor" we know how animals reproduce.

[goaded]

There are people walking around with "varying numbers of chromosomes", it happens all the time.

[catarecute]

maybe the creator doesn't want us to know he exists. thats a possible explanation. or maybe he does want us to know he exists and has given us many evidences of this and some dont want to believe. some people only believe what they want to believe.

[strateguy632]

your second sentence is about explanation it doesn't equate explanation with evidence. so i am happy we agree.

[strateguy632]

also about the first maybe, if so then he would not send prophets to make testable predictions as described in book deuteronomy.

[catarecute]

either way the truth is inside yourself. its not inside other people. i learned in life the only way to find the truth is to find in inside your own mind. by seraching for logical facts here and there that can help you figure it out. never ask others

[genericname85]

an explanation is straight up not evidence at all. evidence is a body of facts which are positively indicative of, and/or exclusively concordant with one available position or hypothesis over any other.

typically in sicence when we talk about "something is more or less likely" it's not just "a hunch" or a guess. cause hunches or guesses aren't scientific. we'd typical have methods of statistical analysis that can exactly show us the percentage chance of us being wrong. and typically that percentage chance must be under or at the very least equal to 0.05% to even be accepted as a viable theory.

and since nothing can ever be known to be 100% right, at least knowing the percentage chance that we're wrong with is the best we can do. blindly following a religious dogma will reliably lead you to things that are wrong.

[Grond21]

Excellent point