You probably have never seen the words lanugo and epistemology in the same sentence. But to understand the power of evolutionary thinking we need to understand both words. Lanugo is a fine hair we grow about six months after conception and then lose before birth. Epistemology, on the other hand, is the theory of knowledge. How do we know what we know? How can we know that what we know is true? It’s a complicated subject and science avoids many of the quandaries by simply positing hypotheses that make predictions. Think of the process as an IF-THEN statement. IF the planets circle the sun, THEN we should observe retrograde motion. Epistemologically speaking, the IF-THEN statement is very safe. It makes no claims about ultimate truth, it simply states that if a particular hypothesis is true, then a particular event should be observed. And if the event is observed then the hypothesis may or may not be true. All we can say is that it has not been falsified. If the event is not observed, on the other hand, then the hypothesis is false or at least needs to be modified. As you can see it is not easy to make progress with the IF-THEN statement. If all we can do is not falsify a hypothesis how can we ever establish any truths? This is where evolutionary thinking comes in. Read more