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146-424: In science and history, consilience (also convergence of evidence or concordance of evidence ) is the principle that evidence from independent, unrelated sources can "converge" on strong conclusions. That is, when multiple sources of evidence are in agreement, the conclusion can be very strong even when none of the individual sources of evidence is significantly so on its own. Most established scientific knowledge

292-415: A consensus to emerge since the different parties may be unable to agree even on what the evidence is. When understood in the widest sense, it is not controversial that some form of theory-ladenness exists. But it is questionable whether it constitutes a serious threat to scientific evidence when understood in this sense. Philosophers in the 20th century started to investigate the "evidential relation",

438-405: A criminal act. The focus of criminal evidence is to connect physical evidence and reports of witnesses to a specific person. The path that physical evidence takes from the scene of a crime or the arrest of a suspect to the courtroom is called the chain of custody . In a criminal case, this path must be clearly documented or attested to by those who handled the evidence. If the chain of evidence

584-471: A jigsaw puzzle . Rocks normally form relatively horizontal layers, with each layer younger than the one underneath it. If a fossil is found between two layers whose ages are known, the fossil's age must lie between the two known ages. Because rock sequences are not continuous, but may be broken up by faults or periods of erosion , it is very difficult to match up rock beds that are not directly next to one another. However, fossils of species that survived for

730-519: A meter stick – in all three cases, the answer should be approximately the same. For the same reason, different dating methods in geochronology should concur, a result in chemistry should not contradict a result in geology, etc. The word consilience was originally coined as the phrase "consilience of inductions" by William Whewell ( consilience refers to a "jumping together" of knowledge). The word comes from Latin com- "together" and -siliens "jumping" (as in resilience). Consilience requires

876-403: A case. The decision-maker, often a jury, but sometimes a judge decides whether the burden of proof has been fulfilled. After deciding who will carry the burden of proof, the evidence is first gathered and then presented before the court: In a criminal investigation, rather than attempting to prove an abstract or hypothetical point, the evidence gatherers attempt to determine who is responsible for

1022-544: A collision that formed the Moon about 40 million years later, may have cooled quickly enough to have oceans and an atmosphere about 4,440  million years ago . There is evidence on the Moon of a Late Heavy Bombardment by asteroids from 4,000 to 3,800 million years ago . If, as seems likely, such a bombardment struck Earth at the same time, the first atmosphere and oceans may have been stripped away. Paleontology traces

1168-602: A common ancestor. Ideally the "family tree" has only two branches leading from each node ("junction"), but sometimes there is too little information to achieve this, and paleontologists have to make do with junctions that have several branches. The cladistic technique is sometimes fallible, as some features, such as wings or camera eyes , evolved more than once, convergently  – this must be taken into account in analyses. Evolutionary developmental biology , commonly abbreviated to "Evo Devo", also helps paleontologists to produce "family trees", and understand fossils. For example,

1314-451: A constant rate. These " molecular clocks ", however, are fallible, and provide only a very approximate timing: for example, they are not sufficiently precise and reliable for estimating when the groups that feature in the Cambrian explosion first evolved, and estimates produced by different techniques may vary by a factor of two. Earth formed about 4,570  million years ago and, after

1460-403: A data source that is not limited to animals with easily fossilised hard parts, and they reflect organisms' behaviours. Also many traces date from significantly earlier than the body fossils of animals that are thought to have been capable of making them. Whilst exact assignment of trace fossils to their makers is generally impossible, traces may for example provide the earliest physical evidence of

1606-567: A fortunate accident during other research. For example, the 1980 discovery by Luis and Walter Alvarez of iridium , a mainly extraterrestrial metal, in the Cretaceous – Paleogene boundary layer made asteroid impact the most favored explanation for the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event – although debate continues about the contribution of volcanism. A complementary approach to developing scientific knowledge, experimental science ,

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1752-814: A minor group until the first jawed fish appeared in the Late Ordovician . The spread of animals and plants from water to land required organisms to solve several problems, including protection against drying out and supporting themselves against gravity . The earliest evidence of land plants and land invertebrates date back to about 476  million years ago and 490  million years ago respectively. Those invertebrates, as indicated by their trace and body fossils, were shown to be arthropods known as euthycarcinoids . The lineage that produced land vertebrates evolved later but very rapidly between 370  million years ago and 360  million years ago ; recent discoveries have overturned earlier ideas about

1898-578: A more modern usage, the plural form is also used. In academic discourse, evidence plays a central role in epistemology and in the philosophy of science . Reference to evidence is made in many different fields, like in science, in the legal system, in history, in journalism and in everyday discourse. A variety of different attempts have been made to conceptualize the nature of evidence. These attempts often proceed by starting with intuitions from one field or in relation to one theoretical role played by evidence and go on to generalize these intuitions, leading to

2044-455: A neutral arbiter between competing theories. Measurements of Mercury's "anomalous" orbit , for example, are seen as evidence that confirms Einstein 's theory of general relativity . Philosophers of science tend to understand evidence not as mental states but as observable physical objects or events, secured by following the scientific method . The problems of underdetermination and theory-ladenness are two obstacles that threaten to undermine

2190-485: A perceived failure to fulfill the burden of proof. Two principal considerations are: The latter question depends on the nature of the point under contention and determines the quantity and quality of evidence required to meet the burden of proof. In a criminal trial in the United States, for example, the prosecution carries the burden of proof since the defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond

2336-453: A philosophical debate , there is an implicit burden of proof on the party asserting a claim, since the default position is generally one of neutrality or unbelief. Each party in a debate will therefore carry the burden of proof for any assertion they make in the argument, although some assertions may be granted by the other party without further evidence. If the debate is set up as a resolution to be supported by one side and refuted by another,

2482-447: A pre-existing hypothesis. Logical positivists , on the other hand, held that this priority is semantic in nature, i.e. that the meanings of the theoretical terms used in the hypothesis are determined by what would count as evidence for them. Counterexamples for this view come from the fact that our idea of what counts as evidence may change while the meanings of the corresponding theoretical terms remain constant. The most plausible view

2628-530: A proposition is evidence for a hypothesis if it entails the "development of the hypothesis". Intuitively, the development of the hypothesis is what the hypothesis states if it was restricted to only the individuals mentioned in the evidence. In the case above, we have the hypothesis " ∀ x ( s w a n ( x ) → w h i t e ( x ) ) {\displaystyle \forall x(swan(x)\rightarrow white(x))} " (all swans are white) which, when restricted to

2774-555: A rapid increase in knowledge about the history of life on Earth and to progress in the definition of the geologic time scale , largely based on fossil evidence. Although she was rarely recognised by the scientific community, Mary Anning was a significant contributor to the field of palaeontology during this period; she uncovered multiple novel Mesozoic reptile fossils and deducted that what were then known as bezoar stones are in fact fossilised faeces . In 1822 Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville , editor of Journal de Physique , coined

2920-408: A reasonable doubt . Similarly, in most civil procedures , the plaintiff carries the burden of proof and must convince a judge or jury that the preponderance of the evidence is on their side. Other legal standards of proof include "reasonable suspicion", "probable cause" (as for arrest ), " prima facie evidence", "credible evidence", "substantial evidence", and "clear and convincing evidence". In

3066-535: A relatively short time can be used to link up isolated rocks: this technique is called biostratigraphy . For instance, the conodont Eoplacognathus pseudoplanus has a short range in the Middle Ordovician period. If rocks of unknown age are found to have traces of E. pseudoplanus , they must have a mid-Ordovician age. Such index fossils must be distinctive, be globally distributed and have a short time range to be useful. However, misleading results are produced if

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3212-528: A serious problem to be reconciled. For example, in the 19th century, the Sun appeared to be no more than 20 million years old, but the Earth appeared to be no less than 300 million years (resolved by the discovery of nuclear fusion and radioactivity , and the theory of quantum mechanics ); or current attempts to resolve theoretical differences between quantum mechanics and general relativity . Because of consilience,

3358-604: A steady increase in brain size after about 3  million years ago . There is a long-running debate about whether modern humans are descendants of a single small population in Africa , which then migrated all over the world less than 200,000 years ago and replaced previous hominine species, or arose worldwide at the same time as a result of interbreeding . Life on earth has suffered occasional mass extinctions at least since 542  million years ago . Despite their disastrous effects, mass extinctions have sometimes accelerated

3504-455: A symptom of the truth of the hypothesis. Against this approach, it has been argued that it is too liberal because it allows accidental generalizations as evidence. Finding a nickel in one's pocket, for example, raises the probability of the hypothesis that "All the coins in my pockets are nickels". But, according to Alvin Goldman , it should not be considered evidence for this hypothesis since there

3650-436: A universal definition of evidence. One important intuition is that evidence is what justifies beliefs . This line of thought is usually followed in epistemology and tends to explain evidence in terms of private mental states, for example, as experiences, other beliefs or knowledge. This is closely related to the idea that how rational someone is, is determined by how they respond to evidence. Another intuition, which

3796-448: Is accumulated through observations of phenomena that occur in the natural world, or which are created as experiments in a laboratory or other controlled conditions. Scientists tend to focus on how the data used during statistical inference are generated. Scientific evidence usually goes towards supporting or rejecting a hypothesis . The burden of proof is on the person making a contentious claim. Within science, this translates to

3942-485: Is an apparent explanation of why scientific knowledge determined in one field of inquiry has often helped in understanding other fields. Consilience does not forbid deviations: in fact, since not all experiments are perfect, some deviations from established knowledge are expected. However, when the convergence is strong enough, then new evidence inconsistent with the previous conclusion is not usually enough to outweigh that convergence. Without an equally strong convergence on

4088-620: Is broken, a defendant may be able to persuade the judge to declare the evidence inadmissible . Presenting evidence before the court differs from the gathering of evidence in important ways. Gathering evidence may take many forms; presenting evidence that tends to prove or disprove the point at issue is strictly governed by rules. Failure to follow these rules leads to any number of consequences. In law, certain policies allow (or require) evidence to be excluded from consideration based either on indicia relating to reliability, or broader social concerns. Testimony (which tells) and exhibits (which show) are

4234-436: Is built. This evidence-based method is meant to make it possible for philosophy to overcome many of the traditionally unresolved disagreements and thus become a rigorous science. This far-reaching claim of phenomenology, based on absolute certainty, is one of the focal points of criticism by its opponents. Thus, it has been argued that even knowledge based on self-evident intuition is fallible. This can be seen, for example, in

4380-584: Is composed only of eukaryotic cells, and the earliest evidence for it is the Francevillian Group Fossils from 2,100  million years ago , although specialisation of cells for different functions first appears between 1,430  million years ago (a possible fungus) and 1,200  million years ago (a probable red alga ). Sexual reproduction may be a prerequisite for specialisation of cells, as an asexual multicellular organism might be at risk of being taken over by rogue cells that retain

4526-492: Is especially relevant for choosing between competing theories. So in the case above, evidence plays the role of neutral arbiter between Newton's and Einstein's theory of gravitation. This is only possible if scientific evidence is public and uncontroversial so that proponents of competing scientific theories agree on what evidence is available. These requirements suggest scientific evidence consists not of private mental states but of public physical objects or events . It

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4672-477: Is hard to decide at what level to place a new higher-level grouping, e.g. genus or family or order ; this is important since the Linnaean rules for naming groups are tied to their levels, and hence if a group is moved to a different level it must be renamed. Paleontologists generally use approaches based on cladistics , a technique for working out the evolutionary "family tree" of a set of organisms. It works by

4818-446: Is infeasible, some of the benefits of consilience may still be obtained if it is well-established that these techniques usually give the same result. Consilience is important across all of science, including the social sciences, and is often used as an argument for scientific realism by philosophers of science. Each branch of science studies a subset of reality that depends on factors studied in other branches. Atomic physics underlies

4964-446: Is more dominant in the philosophy of science, focuses on evidence as that which confirms scientific hypotheses and arbitrates between competing theories. On this view, it is essential that evidence is public so that different scientists can share the same evidence. This leaves publicly observable phenomena like physical objects and events as the best candidates for evidence, unlike private mental states. One problem with these approaches

5110-402: Is no lawful connection between this one nickel and the other coins in the pocket. Hypothetico-deductivism is a non-probabilistic approach that characterizes the evidential relations in terms of deductive consequences of the hypothesis. According to this view, "evidence for a hypothesis is a true observational consequence of that hypothesis". One problem with the characterization so far

5256-474: Is often combined with the idea that evidence, propositional or otherwise, determines what it is rational for us to believe. But it can be rational to have a false belief. This is the case when we possess misleading evidence. For example, it was rational for Neo in the Matrix movie to believe that he was living in the 20th century because of all the evidence supporting his belief despite the fact that this evidence

5402-534: Is often held as an argument against this view since sensory impressions are commonly treated as evidence. Propositionalism is sometimes combined with the view that only attitudes to true propositions can count as evidence. On this view, the belief that the corner shop sells milk only constitutes evidence for the belief that the corner shop sells dairy products if the corner shop actually sells milk. Against this position, it has been argued that evidence can be misleading but still count as evidence. This line of thought

5548-411: Is often held that evidence is in some sense prior to the hypotheses it confirms. This was sometimes understood as temporal priority , i.e. that we come first to possess the evidence and later form the hypothesis through induction. But this temporal order is not always reflected in scientific practice, where experimental researchers may look for a specific piece of evidence in order to confirm or disconfirm

5694-443: Is often said to work by conducting experiments to disprove hypotheses about the workings and causes of natural phenomena. This approach cannot prove a hypothesis, since some later experiment may disprove it, but the accumulation of failures to disprove is often compelling evidence in favor. However, when confronted with totally unexpected phenomena, such as the first evidence for invisible radiation , experimental scientists often use

5840-594: Is one that contained an extinct "crocodile-like" marine reptile, which eventually came to be known as the mosasaurid Mosasaurus of the Cretaceous period. The first half of the 19th century saw geological and paleontological activity become increasingly well organised with the growth of geologic societies and museums and an increasing number of professional geologists and fossil specialists. Interest increased for reasons that were not purely scientific, as geology and paleontology helped industrialists to find and exploit natural resources such as coal. This contributed to

5986-401: Is our only means of giving rocks greater than about 50 million years old an absolute age, and can be accurate to within 0.5% or better. Although radiometric dating requires very careful laboratory work, its basic principle is simple: the rates at which various radioactive elements decay are known, and so the ratio of the radioactive element to the element into which it decays shows how long ago

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6132-426: Is sometimes held that only propositional mental states can play this role, a position known as "propositionalism". A mental state is propositional if it is an attitude directed at a propositional content. Such attitudes are usually expressed by verbs like "believe" together with a that-clause, as in "Robert believes that the corner shop sells milk". Such a view denies that sensory impressions can act as evidence. This

6278-495: Is strong evidence in favor of that event occurring even if each individual historian is only partially reliable. By contrast, if the same historian had made the same claim five times in five different places (and no other types of evidence were available), the claim is much weaker because it originates from a single source. The evidence from the ancient historians could also converge with evidence from other fields, such as archaeology: for example, evidence that many senators fled Rome at

6424-419: Is strong evidence that none of the methods are in error and the conclusion is correct. This is because of a greatly reduced likelihood of errors: for a consensus estimate from multiple measurements to be wrong, the errors would have to be similar for all samples and all methods of measurement, which is extremely unlikely. Random errors will tend to cancel out as more measurements are made, due to regression to

6570-489: Is supported by a convergence of evidence: if not, the evidence is comparatively weak, and there will probably not be a strong scientific consensus . The principle is based on unity of knowledge ; measuring the same result by several different methods should lead to the same answer. For example, it should not matter whether one measures distances within the Giza pyramid complex by laser rangefinding , by satellite imaging , or with

6716-403: Is that hypotheses usually contain relatively little information and therefore have few if any deductive observational consequences. So the hypothesis by itself that there is a fire does not entail that smoke is observed. Instead, various auxiliary assumptions have to be included about the location of the smoke, the fire, the observer, the lighting conditions, the laws of chemistry, etc. In this way,

6862-402: Is that justified belief has to be connected to or grounded in the mental state acting as its evidence. So Phoebe's belief that the speakers are on is not justified by her auditory experience if the belief is not based in this experience. This would be the case, for example, if Phoebe has both the experience and the belief but is unaware of the fact that the music is produced by the speakers. It

7008-437: Is that the resulting definitions of evidence, both within a field and between fields, vary a lot and are incompatible with each other. For example, it is not clear what a bloody knife and a perceptual experience have in common when both are treated as evidence in different disciplines. This suggests that there is no unitary concept corresponding to the different theoretical roles ascribed to evidence, i.e. that we do not always mean

7154-532: Is that this priority is epistemic in nature, i.e. that our belief in a hypothesis is justified based on the evidence while the justification for the belief in the evidence does not depend on the hypothesis. A central issue for the scientific conception of evidence is the problem of underdetermination , i.e. that the evidence available supports competing theories equally well. So, for example, evidence from our everyday life about how gravity works confirms Newton's and Einstein's theory of gravitation equally well and

7300-415: Is the hypothesis rejected: this can be referred to as ' refutation of the hypothesis'. The rules for evidence used by science are collected systematically in an attempt to avoid the bias inherent to anecdotal evidence . In law, the production and presentation of evidence depend first on establishing on whom the burden of proof lies. Admissible evidence is that which a court receives and considers for

7446-420: Is therefore unable to establish consensus among scientists. But in such cases, it is often the gradual accumulation of evidence that eventually leads to an emerging consensus. This evidence-driven process towards consensus seems to be one hallmark of the sciences not shared by other fields. Another problem for the conception of evidence in terms of confirmation of hypotheses is that what some scientists consider

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7592-503: Is thought to have been propelled by coevolution with pollinating insects. Social insects appeared around the same time and, although they account for only small parts of the insect "family tree", now form over 50% of the total mass of all insects. Humans evolved from a lineage of upright-walking apes whose earliest fossils date from over 6  million years ago . Although early members of this lineage had chimp -sized brains, about 25% as big as modern humans', there are signs of

7738-499: Is why evidence is often associated with the controversial thesis that it constitutes an immediate access to truth. In this sense, the evidently given phenomenon guarantees its own truth and is therefore considered indubitable. Due to this special epistemological status of evidence, it is regarded in phenomenology as the basic principle of all philosophy. In this form, it represents the lowest foundation of knowledge, which consists of indubitable insights upon which all subsequent knowledge

7884-567: The Middle Ages the Persian naturalist Ibn Sina , known as Avicenna in Europe, discussed fossils and proposed a theory of petrifying fluids on which Albert of Saxony elaborated in the 14th century. The Chinese naturalist Shen Kuo (1031–1095) proposed a theory of climate change based on the presence of petrified bamboo in regions that in his time were too dry for bamboo. In early modern Europe ,

8030-528: The Neogene - Quaternary . In deeper-level deposits in western Europe are early-aged mammals such as the palaeothere perissodactyl Palaeotherium and the anoplotheriid artiodactyl Anoplotherium , both of which were described earliest after the former two genera, which today are known to date to the Paleogene period. Cuvier figured out that even older than the two levels of deposits with extinct large mammals

8176-637: The Permian–Triassic extinction event . Amphibians Extinct Synapsids Mammals Extinct reptiles Lizards and snakes Extinct Archosaurs Crocodilians Extinct Dinosaurs Birds Naming groups of organisms in a way that is clear and widely agreed is important, as some disputes in paleontology have been based just on misunderstandings over names. Linnaean taxonomy is commonly used for classifying living organisms, but runs into difficulties when dealing with newly discovered organisms that are significantly different from known ones. For example: it

8322-513: The Permian–Triassic extinction event . A relatively recent discipline, molecular phylogenetics , compares the DNA and RNA of modern organisms to re-construct the "family trees" of their evolutionary ancestors. It has also been used to estimate the dates of important evolutionary developments, although this approach is controversial because of doubts about the reliability of the " molecular clock ". Techniques from engineering have been used to analyse how

8468-576: The Renaissance and found its apogee in the Age of Enlightenment . Whewell's definition was that: The Consilience of Inductions takes place when an Induction , obtained from one class of facts, coincides with an Induction obtained from another different class. Thus Consilience is a test of the truth of the Theory in which it occurs. More recent descriptions include: "Where there is a convergence of evidence, where

8614-454: The embryological development of some modern brachiopods suggests that brachiopods may be descendants of the halkieriids , which became extinct in the Cambrian period. Paleontology seeks to map out how living things have changed through time. A substantial hurdle to this aim is the difficulty of working out how old fossils are. Beds that preserve fossils typically lack the radioactive elements needed for radiometric dating . This technique

8760-506: The logical positivists , Timothy Williamson , Earl Conee and Richard Feldman. Russell, Quine and the logical positivists belong to the empiricist tradition and hold that evidence consists in sense data, stimulation of one's sensory receptors and observation statements, respectively. According to Williamson, all and only knowledge constitute evidence. Conee and Feldman hold that only one's current mental states should be considered evidence. The guiding intuition within epistemology concerning

8906-438: The probability of the supported statement. According to hypothetico-deductivism , evidence consists in observational consequences of a hypothesis. The positive-instance approach states that an observation sentence is evidence for a universal statement if the sentence describes a positive instance of this statement. Understood in its broadest sense, evidence for a proposition is what supports this proposition. Traditionally,

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9052-422: The strength of evidence for any particular conclusion is related to how many independent methods are supporting the conclusion, as well as how different these methods are. Those techniques with the fewest (or no) shared characteristics provide the strongest consilience and result in the strongest conclusions. This also means that confidence is usually strongest when considering evidence from different fields because

9198-521: The " jigsaw puzzles " of biostratigraphy (arrangement of rock layers from youngest to oldest). Classifying ancient organisms is also difficult, as many do not fit well into the Linnaean taxonomy classifying living organisms, and paleontologists more often use cladistics to draw up evolutionary "family trees". The final quarter of the 20th century saw the development of molecular phylogenetics , which investigates how closely organisms are related by measuring

9344-548: The Early Cambrian , along with several "weird wonders" that bear little obvious resemblance to any modern animals. There is a long-running debate about whether this Cambrian explosion was truly a very rapid period of evolutionary experimentation; alternative views are that modern-looking animals began evolving earlier but fossils of their precursors have not yet been found, or that the "weird wonders" are evolutionary "aunts" and "cousins" of modern groups. Vertebrates remained

9490-411: The Earth's organic and inorganic past". William Whewell (1794–1866) classified paleontology as one of the historical sciences, along with archaeology , geology, astronomy , cosmology , philology and history itself: paleontology aims to describe phenomena of the past and to reconstruct their causes. Hence it has three main elements: description of past phenomena; developing a general theory about

9636-481: The Holocaust. We must examine the collective whole." That is, individually the evidence may underdetermine the conclusion, but together they overdetermine it. A similar way to state this is that to ask for one particular piece of evidence in favor of a conclusion is a flawed question. In addition to the sciences, consilience can be important to the arts , ethics and religion. Both artists and scientists have identified

9782-475: The Scientific Revolution (1959). Wilson believed that "the humanities, ranging from philosophy and history to moral reasoning, comparative religion, and interpretation of the arts, will draw closer to the sciences and partly fuse with them" with the result that science and the scientific method, from within this fusion, would not only explain the physical phenomenon but also provide moral guidance and be

9928-412: The ability to reproduce. The earliest known animals are cnidarians from about 580  million years ago , but these are so modern-looking that they must be descendants of earlier animals. Early fossils of animals are rare because they had not developed mineralised , easily fossilized hard parts until about 548  million years ago . The earliest modern-looking bilaterian animals appear in

10074-515: The appearance of moderately complex animals (comparable to earthworms ). Geochemical observations may help to deduce the global level of biological activity at a certain period, or the affinity of certain fossils. For example, geochemical features of rocks may reveal when life first arose on Earth, and may provide evidence of the presence of eukaryotic cells, the type from which all multicellular organisms are built. Analyses of carbon isotope ratios may help to explain major transitions such as

10220-625: The atmosphere increased their effectiveness as nurseries of evolution. While eukaryotes , cells with complex internal structures, may have been present earlier, their evolution speeded up when they acquired the ability to transform oxygen from a poison to a powerful source of metabolic energy. This innovation may have come from primitive eukaryotes capturing oxygen-powered bacteria as endosymbionts and transforming them into organelles called mitochondria . The earliest evidence of complex eukaryotes with organelles (such as mitochondria) dates from 1,850  million years ago . Multicellular life

10366-415: The bodies of ancient organisms might have worked, for example the running speed and bite strength of Tyrannosaurus , or the flight mechanics of Microraptor . It is relatively commonplace to study the internal details of fossils using X-ray microtomography . Paleontology, biology, archaeology, and paleoneurobiology combine to study endocranial casts (endocasts) of species related to humans to clarify

10512-729: The border between biology and geology , but it differs from archaeology in that it excludes the study of anatomically modern humans . It now uses techniques drawn from a wide range of sciences, including biochemistry , mathematics , and engineering. Use of all these techniques has enabled paleontologists to discover much of the evolutionary history of life , almost back to when Earth became capable of supporting life, nearly 4 billion years ago. As knowledge has increased, paleontology has developed specialised sub-divisions, some of which focus on different types of fossil organisms while others study ecology and environmental history, such as ancient climates . Body fossils and trace fossils are

10658-412: The burden resting on presenters of a paper, in which the presenters argue for their specific findings. This paper is placed before a panel of judges where the presenter must defend the thesis against all challenges. When evidence is contradictory to predicted expectations, the evidence and the ways of making it are often closely scrutinized (see experimenter's regress ) and only at the end of this process

10804-401: The causes of various types of change; and applying those theories to specific facts. When trying to explain the past, paleontologists and other historical scientists often construct a set of one or more hypotheses about the causes and then look for a " smoking gun ", a piece of evidence that strongly accords with one hypothesis over any others. Sometimes researchers discover a "smoking gun" by

10950-763: The characteristics and evolution of humans as a species. When dealing with evidence about humans, archaeologists and paleontologists may work together – for example paleontologists might identify animal or plant fossils around an archaeological site , to discover the people who lived there, and what they ate; or they might analyze the climate at the time of habitation. In addition, paleontology often borrows techniques from other sciences, including biology, osteology , ecology, chemistry , physics and mathematics. For example, geochemical signatures from rocks may help to discover when life first arose on Earth, and analyses of carbon isotope ratios may help to identify climate changes and even to explain major transitions such as

11096-520: The chronological order in which rocks were formed, is useful to both paleontologists and geologists. Biogeography studies the spatial distribution of organisms, and is also linked to geology, which explains how Earth's geography has changed over time. Although paleontology became established around 1800, earlier thinkers had noticed aspects of the fossil record. The ancient Greek philosopher Xenophanes (570–480 BCE) concluded from fossil sea shells that some areas of land were once under water. During

11242-551: The concept of consilience in Whewell's sense was widely discussed by philosophers of science, the term was unfamiliar to the broader public until the end of the 20th century, when it was revived in Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge , a 1998 book by the author and biologist E. O. Wilson , as an attempt to bridge the cultural gap between the sciences and the humanities that was the subject of C. P. Snow 's The Two Cultures and

11388-409: The conditional probability of this hypothesis relative to the evidence is higher than the unconditional probability of the hypothesis by itself. Smoke (E), for example, is evidence that there is a fire (H), because the two usually occur together, which is why the likelihood of fire given that there is smoke is higher than the likelihood of fire by itself. On this view, evidence is akin to an indicator or

11534-445: The date when lineages first appeared. For instance, if fossils of B or C date to X million years ago and the calculated "family tree" says A was an ancestor of B and C, then A must have evolved more than X million years ago. It is also possible to estimate how long ago two living clades diverged – i.e. approximately how long ago their last common ancestor must have lived – by assuming that DNA mutations accumulate at

11680-586: The development of mammalian traits such as endothermy and hair. After the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event 66  million years ago killed off all the dinosaurs except the birds, mammals increased rapidly in size and diversity, and some took to the air and the sea. Fossil evidence indicates that flowering plants appeared and rapidly diversified in the Early Cretaceous between 130  million years ago and 90  million years ago . Their rapid rise to dominance of terrestrial ecosystems

11826-551: The development of the body plans of most animal phyla . The discovery of fossils of the Ediacaran biota and developments in paleobiology extended knowledge about the history of life back far before the Cambrian. Increasing awareness of Gregor Mendel 's pioneering work in genetics led first to the development of population genetics and then in the mid-20th century to the modern evolutionary synthesis , which explains evolution as

11972-477: The different levels of deposits represented different time periods in the early 19th century. The surface-level deposits in the Americas contained later mammals like the megatheriid ground sloth Megatherium and the mammutid proboscidean Mammut (later known informally as a "mastodon"), which were some of the earliest-named fossil mammal genera with official taxonomic authorities. They today are known to date to

12118-399: The domain "{a}", containing only the one individual mentioned in the evidence, entails the evidence, i.e. " s w a n ( a ) ∧ w h i t e ( a ) {\displaystyle swan(a)\land white(a)} " (this swan is white). One important shortcoming of this approach is that it requires that the hypothesis and the evidence are formulated in

12264-409: The end of the 20th century have been particularly important as they have provided new information about the earliest evolution of animals, early fish, dinosaurs and the evolution of birds. The last few decades of the 20th century saw a renewed interest in mass extinctions and their role in the evolution of life on Earth. There was also a renewed interest in the Cambrian explosion that apparently saw

12410-455: The evidence to be may already involve various theoretical assumptions not shared by other scientists. This phenomenon is known as theory-ladenness . Some cases of theory-ladenness are relatively uncontroversial, for example, that the numbers output by a measurement device need additional assumptions about how this device works and what was measured in order to count as meaningful evidence. Other putative cases are more controversial, for example,

12556-409: The evidence, considered together as a whole, results in the strong scientific consensus that the theory is correct. In a similar way, evidence about the history of the universe is drawn from astronomy, astrophysics, planetary geology, and physics. Finding similar conclusions from multiple independent methods is also evidence for the reliability of the methods themselves, because consilience eliminates

12702-518: The evidential relation becomes a three-place relation between evidence, hypothesis and auxiliary assumptions. This means that whether a thing is evidence for a hypothesis depends on the auxiliary assumptions one holds. This approach fits well with various scientific practices. For example, it is often the case that experimental scientists try to find evidence that would confirm or disconfirm a proposed theory. The hypothetico-deductive approach can be used to predict what should be observed in an experiment if

12848-409: The evidential relation in terms of probabilities. They hold that all that is necessary is that the existence of the evidence increases the likelihood that the hypothesis is true. This can be expressed mathematically as P ( H ∣ E ) > P ( H ) {\displaystyle P(H\mid E)>P(H)} . In words: a piece of evidence (E) confirms a hypothesis (H) if

12994-410: The evolution of the human brain. Paleontology even contributes to astrobiology , the investigation of possible life on other planets , by developing models of how life may have arisen and by providing techniques for detecting evidence of life. As knowledge has increased, paleontology has developed specialised subdivisions. Vertebrate paleontology concentrates on fossils from the earliest fish to

13140-466: The evolutionary history of life back to over 3,000  million years ago , possibly as far as 3,800  million years ago . The oldest clear evidence of life on Earth dates to 3,000  million years ago , although there have been reports, often disputed, of fossil bacteria from 3,400  million years ago and of geochemical evidence for the presence of life 3,800  million years ago . Some scientists have proposed that life on Earth

13286-555: The exceptional events that cause quick burial make it difficult to study the normal environments of the animals. The sparseness of the fossil record means that organisms are expected to exist long before and after they are found in the fossil record – this is known as the Signor–Lipps effect . Trace fossils consist mainly of tracks and burrows, but also include coprolites (fossil feces ) and marks left by feeding. Trace fossils are particularly significant because they represent

13432-432: The fact that Socrates's wisdom is irrelevant here. According to the positive-instance approach , an observation sentence is evidence for a universal hypothesis if the sentence describes a positive instance of this hypothesis. For example, the observation that "this swan is white" is an instance of the universal hypothesis that "all swans are white". This approach can be given a precise formulation in first-order logic :

13578-449: The fact that even among phenomenologists, there is much disagreement about the basic structures of experience. In the sciences, evidence is understood as what confirms or disconfirms scientific hypotheses . The term "confirmation" is sometimes used synonymously with that of "evidential support". Measurements of Mercury's "anomalous" orbit, for example, are seen as evidence that confirms Einstein's theory of general relativity. This

13724-504: The focus of paleontology shifted to understanding evolutionary paths, including human evolution , and evolutionary theory. The last half of the 19th century saw a tremendous expansion in paleontological activity, especially in North America. The trend continued in the 20th century with additional regions of the Earth being opened to systematic fossil collection. Fossils found in China near

13870-449: The following: At the end of the 18th century Georges Cuvier 's work established comparative anatomy as a scientific discipline and, by proving that some fossil animals resembled no living ones, demonstrated that animals could become extinct , leading to the emergence of paleontology. The expanding knowledge of the fossil record also played an increasing role in the development of geology, particularly stratigraphy . Cuvier proved that

14016-403: The former requiring evidence beyond a reasonable doubt , the latter considering only which side has the preponderance of evidence , or whether the proposition is more likely true or false. The parts of a legal case that are not in controversy are known, in general, as the "facts of the case." Beyond any facts that are undisputed, a judge or jury is usually tasked with being a trier of fact for

14162-580: The fossil record: different environments are more favorable to the preservation of different types of organism or parts of organisms. Further, only the parts of organisms that were already mineralised are usually preserved, such as the shells of molluscs. Since most animal species are soft-bodied, they decay before they can become fossilised. As a result, although there are 30-plus phyla of living animals, two-thirds have never been found as fossils. Occasionally, unusual environments may preserve soft tissues. These lagerstätten allow paleontologists to examine

14308-675: The history and driving forces behind their evolution. Land plants were so successful that their detritus caused an ecological crisis in the Late Devonian , until the evolution of fungi that could digest dead wood. During the Permian period, synapsids , including the ancestors of mammals , may have dominated land environments, but this ended with the Permian–Triassic extinction event 251  million years ago , which came very close to wiping out all complex life. The extinctions were apparently fairly sudden, at least among vertebrates. During

14454-521: The history of Earth's climate and the mechanisms that have changed it  – which have sometimes included evolutionary developments, for example the rapid expansion of land plants in the Devonian period removed more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, reducing the greenhouse effect and thus helping to cause an ice age in the Carboniferous period. Biostratigraphy , the use of fossils to work out

14600-402: The idea that different people or cultures perceive the world through different, incommensurable conceptual schemes , leading them to very different impressions about what is the case and what evidence is available. Theory-ladenness threatens to impede the role of evidence as neutral arbiter since these additional assumptions may favor some theories over others. It could thereby also undermine

14746-542: The immediate ancestors of modern mammals . Invertebrate paleontology deals with fossils such as molluscs , arthropods , annelid worms and echinoderms . Paleobotany studies fossil plants , algae , and fungi. Palynology , the study of pollen and spores produced by land plants and protists , straddles paleontology and botany , as it deals with both living and fossil organisms. Micropaleontology deals with microscopic fossil organisms of all kinds. Instead of focusing on individual organisms, paleoecology examines

14892-402: The implausible consequence that many of simple everyday-beliefs would be unjustified. The more common view is that all kinds of mental states, including stored beliefs that are currently unconscious, can act as evidence. It is sometimes argued that the possession of a mental state capable of justifying another is not sufficient for the justification to happen. The idea behind this line of thought

15038-459: The importance of biology in the process of artistic innovation. Consilience has its roots in the ancient Greek concept of an intrinsic orderliness that governs our cosmos , inherently comprehensible by logical process, a vision at odds with mystical views in many cultures that surrounded the Hellenes. The rational view was recovered during the high Middle Ages , separated from theology during

15184-434: The index fossils turn out to have longer fossil ranges than first thought. Stratigraphy and biostratigraphy can in general provide only relative dating ( A was before B ), which is often sufficient for studying evolution. However, this is difficult for some time periods, because of the problems involved in matching up rocks of the same age across different continents . Family-tree relationships may also help to narrow down

15330-538: The interactions between different ancient organisms, such as their food chains , and the two-way interactions with their environments.   For example, the development of oxygenic photosynthesis by bacteria caused the oxygenation of the atmosphere and hugely increased the productivity and diversity of ecosystems . Together, these led to the evolution of complex eukaryotic cells, from which all multicellular organisms are built. Paleoclimatology , although sometimes treated as part of paleoecology, focuses more on

15476-463: The internal anatomy of animals that in other sediments are represented only by shells, spines, claws, etc. – if they are preserved at all. However, even lagerstätten present an incomplete picture of life at the time. The majority of organisms living at the time are probably not represented because lagerstätten are restricted to a narrow range of environments, e.g. where soft-bodied organisms can be preserved very quickly by events such as mudslides; and

15622-456: The investigation of evolutionary "family trees" by techniques derived from biochemistry , began to make an impact, particularly when it was proposed that the human lineage had diverged from apes much more recently than was generally thought at the time. Although this early study compared proteins from apes and humans, most molecular phylogenetics research is now based on comparisons of RNA and DNA . Fossils of organisms' bodies are usually

15768-409: The logic that, if groups B and C have more similarities to each other than either has to group A, then B and C are more closely related to each other than either is to A. Characters that are compared may be anatomical , such as the presence of a notochord , or molecular , by comparing sequences of DNA or proteins . The result of a successful analysis is a hierarchy of clades – groups that share

15914-410: The mean ; systematic errors will be detected by differences between the measurements and will also tend to cancel out since the direction of the error will still be random. This is how scientific theories reach high confidence—over time, they build up a large degree of evidence which converges on the same conclusion. When results from different strong methods do appear to conflict, this is treated as

16060-418: The methods are independent, when one of several methods is in error, it is very unlikely to be in error in the same way as any of the other methods, and a difference between the measurements will be observed. If the scientific understanding of the properties of lasers was inaccurate, then the laser measurement would be inaccurate but the others would not. As a result, when several different methods agree, this

16206-496: The more these characteristics will be present. There are six intrinsic characteristics of evidence: In addition, four subjective or external characteristics can be detected over those things that are more or less evident: These ten characteristics of what is evident allowed Riofrio to formulate a test of evidence to detect the level of certainty or evidence that one argument or proof could have. Important theorists of evidence include Bertrand Russell , Willard Van Orman Quine ,

16352-409: The most informative type of evidence. The most common types are wood, bones, and shells. Fossilisation is a rare event, and most fossils are destroyed by erosion or metamorphism before they can be observed. Hence the fossil record is very incomplete, increasingly so further back in time. Despite this, it is often adequate to illustrate the broader patterns of life's history. There are also biases in

16498-425: The new result, the weight of evidence will still favor the established result. This means that the new evidence is most likely to be wrong. Science denialism (for example, AIDS denialism ) is often based on a misunderstanding of this property of consilience. A denier may promote small gaps not yet accounted for by the consilient evidence, or small amounts of evidence contradicting a conclusion without accounting for

16644-400: The other issues of a case. Evidence and rules are used to decide questions of fact that are disputed, some of which may be determined by the legal burden of proof relevant to the case. Evidence in certain cases (e.g. capital crimes ) must be more compelling than in other situations (e.g. minor civil disputes), which drastically affects the quality and quantity of evidence necessary to decide

16790-414: The outcome of events such as mutations and horizontal gene transfer , which provide genetic variation , with genetic drift and natural selection driving changes in this variation over time. Within the next few years the role and operation of DNA in genetic inheritance were discovered, leading to what is now known as the "Central Dogma" of molecular biology . In the 1960s molecular phylogenetics ,

16936-493: The overall burden of proof is on the side supporting the resolution. Paleontology Paleontology ( / ˌ p eɪ l i ɒ n ˈ t ɒ l ə dʒ i , ˌ p æ l i -, - ən -/ PAY -lee-on- TOL -ə-jee, PAL -ee-, -⁠ən- ), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology , is the scientific study of life that existed prior to the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes

17082-444: The possibility of all potential errors that do not affect all the methods equally. This is also used for the validation of new techniques through comparison with the consilient ones. If only partial consilience is observed, this allows for the detection of errors in methodology; any weaknesses in one technique can be compensated for by the strengths of the others. Alternatively, if using more than one or two techniques for every experiment

17228-595: The pre-existing strength resulting from consilience. More generally, to insist that all evidence converge precisely with no deviations would be naïve falsificationism, equivalent to considering a single contrary result to falsify a theory when another explanation, such as equipment malfunction or misinterpretation of results, is much more likely. Historical evidence also converges in an analogous way. For example: if five ancient historians, none of whom knew each other, all claim that Julius Caesar seized power in Rome in 49 BCE, this

17374-452: The principal types of evidence about ancient life, and geochemical evidence has helped to decipher the evolution of life before there were organisms large enough to leave body fossils. Estimating the dates of these remains is essential but difficult: sometimes adjacent rock layers allow radiometric dating , which provides absolute dates that are accurate to within 0.5%, but more often paleontologists have to rely on relative dating by solving

17520-465: The purposes of deciding a particular case. Two primary burden-of-proof considerations exist in law. The first is on whom the burden rests. In many, especially Western, courts, the burden of proof is placed on the prosecution in criminal cases and the plaintiff in civil cases. The second consideration is the degree of certitude proof must reach, depending on both the quantity and quality of evidence. These degrees are different for criminal and civil cases,

17666-432: The radioactive element was incorporated into the rock. Radioactive elements are common only in rocks with a volcanic origin, and so the only fossil-bearing rocks that can be dated radiometrically are a few volcanic ash layers. Consequently, paleontologists must usually rely on stratigraphy to date fossils. Stratigraphy is the science of deciphering the "layer-cake" that is the sedimentary record, and has been compared to

17812-479: The relation between evidence and the proposition supported by it. The issue of the nature of the evidential relation concerns the question of what this relation has to be like in order for one thing to justify a belief or to confirm a hypothesis. Important theories in this field include the probabilistic approach , hypothetico-deductivism and the positive-instance approach . Probabilistic approaches , also referred to as Bayesian confirmation theory , explain

17958-459: The role of evidence is that it is what justifies beliefs . For example, Phoebe's auditory experience of the music justifies her belief that the speakers are on. Evidence has to be possessed by the believer in order to play this role. So Phoebe's own experiences can justify her own beliefs but not someone else's beliefs. Some philosophers hold that evidence possession is restricted to conscious mental states, for example, to sense data. This view has

18104-481: The role of scientific evidence. In law , evidence is information to establish or refute claims relevant to a case, such as testimony , documentary evidence , and physical evidence . The relation between evidence and a supported statement can vary in strength, ranging from weak correlation to indisputable proof . Theories of the evidential relation examine the nature of this connection. Probabilistic approaches hold that something counts as evidence if it increases

18250-701: The same approach as historical scientists: construct a set of hypotheses about the causes and then look for a "smoking gun". Paleontology lies between biology and geology since it focuses on the record of past life, but its main source of evidence is fossils in rocks. For historical reasons, paleontology is part of the geology department at many universities: in the 19th and early 20th centuries, geology departments found fossil evidence important for dating rocks, while biology departments showed little interest. Paleontology also has some overlap with archaeology , which primarily works with objects made by humans and with human remains, while paleontologists are interested in

18396-417: The same explanation is implied, there is increased confidence in the explanation. Where there is divergence, then either the explanation is at fault or one or more of the sources of information is in error or requires reinterpretation." "Proof is derived through a convergence of evidence from numerous lines of inquiry--multiple, independent inductions, all of which point to an unmistakable conclusion." Although

18542-510: The same thing when we talk of evidence. On the other hand, Aristotle, phenomenologists, and numerous scholars accept that there could be several degrees of evidence. For instance, while the outcome of a complex equation may become more or less evident to a mathematician after hours of deduction, yet with little doubts about it, a simpler formula would appear more evident to them. Riofrio has detected some characteristics that are present in evident arguments and proofs. The more they are evident,

18688-430: The same vocabulary, i.e. use the same predicates, like " s w a n {\displaystyle swan} " or " w h i t e {\displaystyle white} " above. But many scientific theories posit theoretical objects, like electrons or strings in physics, that are not directly observable and therefore cannot show up in the evidence as conceived here. In scientific research evidence

18834-478: The similarity of the DNA in their genomes . Molecular phylogenetics has also been used to estimate the dates when species diverged, but there is controversy about the reliability of the molecular clock on which such estimates depend. The simplest definition of "paleontology" is "the study of ancient life". The field seeks information about several aspects of past organisms: "their identity and origin, their environment and evolution, and what they can tell us about

18980-465: The slow recovery from this catastrophe a previously obscure group, archosaurs , became the most abundant and diverse terrestrial vertebrates. One archosaur group, the dinosaurs, were the dominant land vertebrates for the rest of the Mesozoic , and birds evolved from one group of dinosaurs. During this time mammals' ancestors survived only as small, mainly nocturnal insectivores , which may have accelerated

19126-625: The study of fossils to classify organisms and study their interactions with each other and their environments (their paleoecology ). Paleontological observations have been documented as far back as the 5th century BC. The science became established in the 18th century as a result of Georges Cuvier 's work on comparative anatomy , and developed rapidly in the 19th century. The term has been used since 1822 formed from Greek παλαιός ( 'palaios' , "old, ancient"), ὄν ( 'on' , ( gen. 'ontos' ), "being, creature"), and λόγος ( 'logos' , "speech, thought, study"). Paleontology lies on

19272-572: The systematic study of fossils emerged as an integral part of the changes in natural philosophy that occurred during the Age of Reason . In the Italian Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci made various significant contributions to the field as well as depicted numerous fossils. Leonardo's contributions are central to the history of paleontology because he established a line of continuity between the two main branches of paleontology – ichnology and body fossil paleontology. He identified

19418-527: The techniques are usually very different. For example, the theory of evolution is supported by a convergence of evidence from genetics , molecular biology , paleontology , geology, biogeography , comparative anatomy , comparative physiology , and many other fields. In fact, the evidence within each of these fields is itself a convergence providing evidence for the theory. As a result, to disprove evolution, most or all of these independent lines of evidence would have to be found to be in error. The strength of

19564-411: The term universology , which literally means "the science of the universe." Universology was first promoted for the study of the interconnecting principles and truths of all domains of knowledge by Stephen Pearl Andrews , a 19th-century utopian futurist and anarchist. Evidence In the philosophy of science , evidence is material that confirms or disconfirms scientific hypotheses , acting as

19710-403: The term "evidence" in phenomenology shows many parallels to its epistemological usage, but it is understood in a narrower sense. Thus, evidence here specifically refers to intuitive knowledge, which is described as "self-given" ( selbst-gegeben ). This contrasts with empty intentions, in which one refers to states of affairs through a certain opinion, but without an intuitive presentation. This

19856-405: The term is sometimes understood in a narrower sense: as the intuitive knowledge of facts that are considered indubitable. In this sense, only the singular form is used. This meaning is found especially in phenomenology, in which evidence is elevated to one of the basic principles of philosophy, giving philosophy the ultimate justifications that are supposed to turn it into a rigorous science. In

20002-402: The theory was true. It thereby explains the evidential relation between the experiment and the theory. One problem with this approach is that it cannot distinguish between relevant and certain irrelevant cases. So if smoke is evidence for the hypothesis "there is fire", then it is also evidence for conjunctions including this hypothesis, for example, "there is fire and Socrates was wise", despite

20148-466: The time, that the battles of Caesar’s civil war occurred, and so forth. Consilience has also been discussed in reference to Holocaust denial . "We [have now discussed] eighteen proofs all converging on one conclusion...the deniers shift the burden of proof to historians by demanding that each piece of evidence, independently and without corroboration between them, prove the Holocaust. Yet no historian has ever claimed that one piece of evidence proves

20294-611: The two main categories of evidence presented at a trial or hearing. In the United States, evidence in federal court is admitted or excluded under the Federal Rules of Evidence . The burden of proof is the obligation of a party in an argument or dispute to provide sufficient evidence to shift the other party's or a third party's belief from their initial position. The burden of proof must be fulfilled by both establishing confirming evidence and negating oppositional evidence. Conclusions drawn from evidence may be subject to criticism based on

20440-428: The ultimate source of all truths. Wilson held that with the rise of the modern sciences , the sense of unity gradually was lost in the increasing fragmentation and specialization of knowledge in the last two centuries. He asserted that the sciences, humanities, and arts have a common goal: to give a purpose to understand the details, to lend to all inquirers "a conviction, far deeper than a mere working proposition, that

20586-437: The use of independent methods of measurement, meaning that the methods have few shared characteristics. That is, the mechanism by which the measurement is made is different; each method is dependent on an unrelated natural phenomenon. For example, the accuracy of laser range-finding measurements is based on the scientific understanding of lasers , while satellite pictures and meter (yard-)sticks rely on different phenomena. Because

20732-406: The word "palaeontology" to refer to the study of ancient living organisms through fossils. As knowledge of life's history continued to improve, it became increasingly obvious that there had been some kind of successive order to the development of life. This encouraged early evolutionary theories on the transmutation of species . After Charles Darwin published Origin of Species in 1859, much of

20878-460: The workings of chemistry , which studies emergent properties that in turn are the basis of biology . Psychology is not separate from the study of properties emergent from the interaction of neurons and synapses . Sociology, economics, and anthropology are each, in turn, studies of properties emergent from the interaction of countless individual humans. The concept that all the different areas of research are studying one real, existing universe

21024-480: The world is orderly and can be explained by a small number of natural laws." An important point made by Wilson is that hereditary human nature and evolution itself profoundly affect the evolution of culture, in essence, a sociobiological concept. Wilson's concept is a much broader notion of consilience than that of Whewell, who was merely pointing out that generalizations invented to account for one set of phenomena often account for others as well. A parallel view lies in

21170-454: Was "seeded" from elsewhere , but most research concentrates on various explanations of how life could have arisen independently on Earth. For about 2,000 million years microbial mats , multi-layered colonies of different bacteria, were the dominant life on Earth. The evolution of oxygenic photosynthesis enabled them to play the major role in the oxygenation of the atmosphere from about 2,400  million years ago . This change in

21316-460: Was misleading since it was part of a simulated reality. This account of evidence and rationality can also be extended to other doxastic attitudes, like disbelief and suspension of belief. So rationality does not just demand that we believe something if we have decisive evidence for it, it also demands that we disbelieve something if we have decisive evidence against it and that we suspend belief if we lack decisive evidence either way. The meaning of

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