lasereye:
"It is not confirmed by anything.
What you are calling "confirmation" is the thing the theory is supposed to explain.
The thing a theory explains cannot also be the thing that confirms the theory.
That's circular reasoning, which is what evolutionists continually insist on using." From your words it sounds like you don't really understand what the term "convergent evolution" means.
Post #20 above shows some obvious examples -- mammal and marsupial species which while only distantly related appear very similar.
The evolution which brings them to that state is perfectly ordinary evolution (descent with modifications, natural selection).
The results are said to "converge" only because they look similar.
So, how is the evolution hypothesis (convergent or not) confirmed to make it a theory?
Thanks for asking.
Scientific hypotheses are confirmed, making them theories, by observing results a hypothesis predicted.
In the case of basic evolution, here is a partial list of confirmations which go back to Darwin.
But the total list of confirmations is much longer since evolution theories & timelines are built into our understandings of every physical science from A-astronomy to Z-zoology and most everything in between.
For one example, astronomical timelines correspond to geological timelines based on radiometric dating.
As for "convergent evolution", one more time: it simply means similar looking species with obviously different natural histories.
If you don't accept evolution theory, then you might call it "convergent creation" and still understand what's meant.
lasereye: "if I propose a theory that trees came about from huge giants vomiting them out and then taking root, a good question would be 'What's the evidence that confirms that remarkable theory?'....
...Using evolutionary "logic", I could reply 'All those trees are powerful confirmation of the theory!'. "
Of course that's just silly.
lasereye: "Actually evolution doesn't make sense, not just convergent evolution.
But I understand perfectly what the claim is and why the claim is made.
Any species is ASSUMED to be the result of evolution.
The original evolution theory cannot account for things that they observe.
Convergent Evolution accounts for it.
Therefore Convergent Evolution is true. QED.
There's literally nothing more to it than that.
It's what's known as an ad hoc hypotheses.
Evolution theory is almost entirely ad hoc."
All those words are worse than silly, they're total mischaracterization and amount to nothing more than mocking, scoffing & scorning what you find inconvenient to other beliefs.
lasereye: "Convergent Evolution is an absolutely perfect example of what this essay, "Protection of a theory" talks about."
Nonsense, "convergent evolution" is simply the natural explanation for why species can look similar while obviously different.
See the examples in my post #20 above.
But also consider something called Japanese samurai crabs, called such because some look like angry samurai.
It's said that fishermen who catch those quickly throw them back and over centuries they appear more & more frequently.
So we might call that "convergent evolution" or even "convergent man-creation" between samurai and crabs, and we would not be totally wrong! ;-)
lasereye: "This being Easter Sunday: "
Happy Easter to you too!
From your words it sounds like you don't really understand what the term "convergent evolution" means. The evolution which brings them to that state is perfectly ordinary evolution (descent with modifications, natural selection). So, how is the evolution hypothesis (convergent or not) confirmed to make it a theory? Thanks for asking.
Scientific hypotheses are confirmed, making them theories, by observing results a hypothesis predicted.
It means two species having some virtually identical feature where neither inherited it from the other. They evolved independently. As the article above says. I didn't say anything about it being a different kind of evolution. Things having the same feature are evidence for one having evolved from the other according to original evolution theory. Now the theory has been modified, and it's a huge ad hoc modification, to say that things having the same feature are evidence for one having evolved from the other, except when it isn't. As the article above says. In other words ad hoc.
The convergent evolution theory came about after they realized things had virtually identical features that could not have inherited it from each other. Nobody predicted it beforehand. Therefore, observing things with the same features (that couldn't have inherited them from each other) did not confirm anything. It has not been confirmed by anything unless you're using circular reasoning where the observed thing confirms the theory concocted to explain the thing.
I see nothing in the list of (allegedly) confirmed predictions that relates to convergent evolution. You need to drop your claim that it's been confirmed by lots of observations.
That list contains the usual BS. For example,
Evolution predicts that features of living things will fit a hierarchical arrangement of relatedness. For example, arthropods all have chitinous exoskeleton, hemocoel, and jointed legs. Insects have all these plus head-thorax-abdomen body plan and 6 legs. Flies have all that plus two wings and halteres. Calypterate flies have all that plus a certain style of antennae, wing veins, and sutures on the face and back. You will never find the distinguishing features of calypterate flies on a non-fly, much less on a non-insect or non-arthropod.
That is not a prediction of evolution. It's something that can be seen as consistent with evolution. Furthermore, there's nothing in there that demonstrates that every single feature of every living thing fits some strict hierarchical arrangement. You think that's actually been demonstrated? It also seems that such a claim is contrary to convergent evolution, since if the same things evolve independently, there's absolutley no reason why "You will never find the distinguishing features of calypterate flies on a non-fly". The idea that if everything fits a strict hierarchical arrangement (which isn't demonstrated there anyway), it confirms evolution implies that all features found in different species were inherited from each other. But (if true) that's consistent with the original theory of evolution only, without the ad hoc convergent evolution added on.
And, even if they were all actually predicted, which I doubt, that's a classic example of another logical fallacy, confirmation bias, otherwise known as cherry picking. There are many many things that are contrary to and problematic for evolution theory. Darwin's original claim, that fossils would show gradual change, is false.
Darwin saved his gradual theory of evolution by claiming that intermediate fossils are not found because "[t]he geological record is extremely imperfect"1 and thus it just so happened that the intermediate links were not the ones fossilized. Gould noted in 1977 that Darwin's argument that the fossil record is imperfect "still persists as the favored escape of most paleontologists from the embarrassment of a record that seems to show so little of evolution directly."
lasereye: "Convergent Evolution is an absolutely perfect example of what this essay, "Protection of a theory" talks about." Nonsense, "convergent evolution" is simply the natural explanation for why species can look similar while obviously different.
My "Protection of a theory" link was to the wrong website. So you didn't read it. The contradiction between the alleged evolution prediction that life forms must all have strictly hierchical features, while we simultaneously have another idea, convergent evolution, which would predict they won't all have strictly hierchical features, is exactly what the essay talks about.
Lost in this process are the ad hoc explanations, X4, X5 etc. Rationally, they should be incorporated into theory T, where they might need their own confirmation, be subject to possible falsification, and be compared with one another for consistency. Instead, they are simply stashed away in a hidden place, to be pulled out and cited when convenient. The original theory T is left in pristine condition, and the "confirmatory" status of E4+ is applied to that unmodified version of T. This amounts to a sophisticated form of intellectual dishonesty.