No claims about the real world can ever be proven in the same way that mathematical statements can be proven. But we can come to accept facts as proven when they are supported (over alternative explanations) by an abundance of observations that have been interpreted in the light of theory and background assumptions (that are Oak tree ChimpHuman themselves accepted). “The earth is round” is such a claim. Equally, there are many phylogenetic claims, such as “humans share amore recent common ancestor with chimpanzees than with oak trees,” implying the tree shown, that are incontrovertible scientific facts. Unlike the claim that the world is round, this tree embodies a statement as to what happened in the past. Therefore, before asking how come we can assert the truth of this tree, let’s briefly address the question of whether there is some reason why it is necessarily harder to learn about the past than about the present.
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