Amazingly, science still proceeds onward. You try to put a lot of words into my mouth, Steven. This is your own straw man, Steven. I suspect you are still working on a YEC stereotype of me. Fossils are facts.
Evolution is a metaphysical theory to account for the facts.
Linnaeus did not automatically assume that similarities were due to common ancestry. He thought they were due to common design. This is not my experience. This is the positivistic argument again. No its not.