> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bruce Sorge [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: Friday, November 16, 2007 6:22 PM
> To: CF-Community
> Subject: Re: Great press for Our Lord and Savior
>
> How about they not teach ID or Evolution since the latter is still a
> theory, hence the name Theory of Evolution. I remember in HS we got to
> evolution, it was not presented so much as a theory as it was real
> science. Same with my daughter last year in 10th grade. Although her
> book mentioned the word theory a couple of times, unless you were
> paying
> attention you could conclude that they are still teaching this as hard
> science. Sigh.
Do we REALLY have to go over the scientific definition of "Theory" again?
Really? AGAIN?
Any argument based on vocabulary is useless when that argument ignores the
applied definition of the term. In short you can't define terms differently
than the source and expect arguments based on those creations (no pun
intended) to be taken seriously.
I've appended a much better explanation from a much better source.
Jim Davis
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
In the American vernacular, "theory" often means "imperfect
fact"--part of a hierarchy of confidence running downhill from fact to
theory to hypothesis to guess. Thus the power of the creationist argument:
evolution is "only" a theory and intense debate now rages about many aspects
of the theory. If evolution is worse than a fact, and scientists can't even
make up their minds about the theory, then what confidence can we have in
it? Indeed, President Reagan echoed this argument before an evangelical
group in Dallas when he said (in what I devoutly hope was campaign
rhetoric): "Well, it is a theory. It is a scientific theory only, and it has
in recent years been challenged in the world of science--that is, not
believed in the scientific community to be as infallible as it once was."
Well evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and
theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing
certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that
explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate
rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced
Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair,
pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape-like ancestors whether they
did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered.
Moreover, "fact" doesn't mean "absolute certainty"; there ain't no
such animal in an exciting and complex world. The final proofs of logic and
mathematics flow deductively from stated premises and achieve certainty only
because they are not about the empirical world. Evolutionists make no claim
for perpetual truth, though creationists often do (and then attack us
falsely for a style of argument that they themselves favor). In science
"fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse
to withhold provisional consent." I suppose that apples might start to rise
tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics
classrooms.
Evolutionists have been very clear about this distinction of fact
and theory from the very beginning, if only because we have always
acknowledged how far we are from completely understanding the mechanisms
(theory) by which evolution (fact) occurred. Darwin continually emphasized
the difference between his two great and separate accomplishments:
establishing the fact of evolution, and proposing a theory--natural
selection--to explain the mechanism of evolution.
- Stephen J. Gould, " Evolution as Fact and Theory"; Discover, May 1981
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