Quote:
Originally Posted by bizaro86
Why would that disprove evolution? I'm not sure I understand why the explanation that rabbits evolved earlier than otherwise thought wouldn't still work...
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It's not the idea that rabbits or some specific species evolved earlier than previously thought, it would be finding a species completely outside the tree of common descent.
Rabbits are a mammal, and all mammals have a common ancestor, but if you found a specific species of mammal before or concurrent with that common ancestor, or if you find a bird fossil before there were dinosaurs, or a reptile fossil when there was there was only fish, etc..
Multicellular life didn't evolve until maybe 600 million years ago, so if you found a rabbit fossil before that when only single cellular life had existed, that'd disprove evolution (or prove rabbits have time travel).
Barring complete falsification due to something like that, evolution is a given. In a similar way, you could walk out your door tomorrow and fall up, falsifying the theory of gravity. It's possible, but not likely.
So barring a falsification like that, any theory that replaces evolution must do a better job of explaining all the observed phenomenon than evolution does, so it's not good enough to just sit back and try and poke holes, one has to come up with something better.
Creationism isn't better, it's avoiding the question by invoking an external agent, and leaves all the observations unexplained and explainable (the answer to any question of why ultimately is "it's a mystery"), and there's no way to tell the difference between Young Earth Creationism and Last Thursdayism (the universe was created last Thursday with the appearance of age and everyone's memories already created).