Same with natural selection.
it's not the same. we can actually observe natural selection acting on natural populations. like we can measure a selective pressure, and measure a change in some character in a population of organisms subject to that pressure. measurements of before, after and an agent. that's not the same at all.
I don't understand why my little, imaginary intelligent design researcher couldn't take measurements that are similar
in kind.
Why isn't the fact that the complex nature of natural selection makes it difficult to predict enough for me to want to be a little cautious when talking about how often we're observing it?
Speaking of Popper, isn't there a way in which natural selection isn't falsifiable like many other scientific theories are? If so, isn't this further reason for me to be cautious about talk of observations of natrual selection?
I'm not normally skeptical. I've just seen quite a bit of hypocrisy from scientists who are eager to belittle religious people yet are completely dismissive of the idea that the version of evolutionary theory they learned in high school can be questioned in any way. That just makes me want to question it more.