Abstract
Frequent claims appear in the Christian science/faith literature, and in popular discussions of science, that the historical sciences (cosmology, astronomy, geology, evolutionary biology, anthropology, archaeology) are fundamentally different from the "hard" sciences, and that their scientific conclusions are less rigorous and less testable. It is argued that the historical sciences deal with unrepeatable events and are therefore not experimental. Furthermore because past events and processes are not directly observable, theories of origins are deemed inferior or less certain than studies of present processes. This view commonly finds expression in statements like: "No one was there so we can never know what really happened." Scientific claims about Earth and biological history are then dismissed as untestable speculation. These various perceptions of historical science represent serious misunderstandings of both the nature of experiment and theory testing, and the character of scientific "proof." It is my hope that this brief essay will serve both to expose widely held misconceptions about the nature of science and to demonstrate that historical science is rigorously testable.