stcordova:
Phylogeny only says something evolved, it doesn’t explain why it is reasonable from physics and chemistry. That’s why bio-chemists like Michael Behe realized it was a non-explanation from chemistry and physics, it was just a bald assertion that evolutionary transformations can happen naturally.
We can directly observe mutations happening through known physics and chemistry. We even observe the fingerprint of these natural mechanisms in the differences seen between species. I have a thread on this topic that you should check out:
In a previous thread I discussed what science meant by random mutations and how this term is defined by experimental results and statistics. A lot of this work was done in the 1940’s and 50’s, and since then many new facts have been discovered in the field of genetics, such as the discovery of DNA. This gave rise to the field of molecular biology and allowed us to understand biology at the molecular scale.
So what exactly causes mutations? We once again have to reiterate the the limited scope of science. What science can do is put forward hypotheses and see if the evidence is consistent with that hypothesis. What science can not do is make ontological statements about absolute truth. With that in mind, the next few posts will discuss the evidence that links mutagenesis (the production of mutations) with the biochemistry of the cell and why scientists aren’t simply assuming that mutations are caused by biochemistry.