Sure it does. Imagine there’s a cave you can’t enter. You can send other people in, though. You send someone in and they tell you there’s a lion in there. You send someone else, they also say there’s a lion. You send a thousand people in and they all say there’s a lion. You send in people you’re certain have never met each other and they say there’s a lion. You send in people from cultures that haven’t contacted each other and they still say there’s a lion. You send in people who have no idea what a lion is and they say there’s a strange animal in there and the description matches a lion.
Put it all together and you have objective evidence that there is, in fact, a lion in that cave.
Without genetic testing you could not objectively know for sure if that was a lion or some other species.
Just because a lot of people agree on something based on shallow observations does not make it objective science. Thats moreso the realm of subjective "soft sciences" like sociology.
> Just because a lot of people agree on something based on shallow observations does not make it objective science. Thats moreso the realm of subjective "soft sciences" like sociology.
What if the people entering the cave make non-shallow observations and report it back to you?
If that's still not enough, then sadly science is not enough either since it relies heavily on cooperation (you can't test everything yourself).
Are you implying that nobody anywhere was ever objectively certain of the presence of a lion before the past few decades?
And how does genetic testing objectively tell you that it’s a lion? Genetic testing tells you that its DNA is similar to something else you’ve previously identified as a lion, but if there’s no way to be sure if that identification then you’re just moving the problem.
Yes, up until the recent advent of genetic sequencing, we humans have often mistakenly considered two organisms that look the same to the naked eye as being the same.
You didn’t address my second point: how does genetic testing give you an objective measure of lionness when it’s still ultimately based on observations and subjective assessments?
Genetic testing is far more scientifically revealing than just eyeballing something because it's based on actual objective tests, data, and math.
Just like radio astrology is far more scientifically revealing than just looking up at the night sky and declaring theres nothing more to the universe than meets the eye.
Typically a genetic variance of >2% indicates a different species
Put it all together and you have objective evidence that there is, in fact, a lion in that cave.