It's just a theory

[Syka]

Now I've noticed that people just don't understand what a scientific theory is. It may not be as concrete as a law, but it is far more then an educated guess. The most disputed theory being evolution. I just want to name some other theories: gravity (haven't seen many people try to disprove this), germs cause disease, and the atomic theory. Nobody tries to disprove these theories, and in fact, the germ theory and atomic theory are newer then evolution. Just some food for thought.

[Skyshot]

Originally Posted by Dictionary.com

1. A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.

That's it right there.

Incidentally, have you ever heard of expanding matter theory? It's an alternative to gravity, although it was published to suggest our viewpoint on reality could be wrong rather than to establish it is.

Just out of curiosity, where do you want the discussion of this thread to go? We need something to "discuss" and bringing evolution into it may kick off a religious fight we don't need or want.

[Syka]

Part of this was me wanting to clarify the difference between somebody's guess and an actual scientific theory. I put in evolution expecting a discussion about it, but to be honest, the religion rule slipped my mind.

[Rev II]

I've heard of the expanding matter "theory" and it's patently ridiculous. It's an interesting idea if you don't know a lot about gravity, I suppose, but it just doesn't work when you talk about gravity as anything other than just falling back to Earth (or wherever you are). It utterly fails to explain such basic gravity-related concepts as the stable orbit or the gravity-well slingshot. Sure, I guess you could come up with s lot of other, equally silly theories, but I'll just Occam's Razor that down. There's plenty of questions about how and why gravity works without turning to faeries and leprochauns.

Yeah, so I was pretty harsh there, I admit it, but nomoreso than I would be with someone talking about the Flat-Earth theory.

[Nique]

Evolution is just different. It isn't something we can observe or test so out-rightly as other scientific theories. Fossil evidence is incomplete...

I could go on, but in short; I think its a very fair call to not belive evolution. It isn't the same at all as not beliving in gravity, or not understanding what 'theory' means -That's just something people say to make the people who don't belive in evolution appear stupid.

There's the counter-argument. No religious disscussion needed.

[Sky Warrior Bob]

Originally Posted by Nique

Evolution is just different. It isn't something we can observe or test so out-rightly as other scientific theories. Fossil evidence is incomplete...

I could go on, but in short; I think its a very fair call to not belive evolution. It isn't the same at all as not beliving in gravity, or not understanding what 'theory' means -

Sorry, but you're wrong. Its exactly the same thing as not believing in gravity. Our understanding of gravity is by no means complete, there are gaps, we don't know precisely its effects. Kinda like how 3.14 (pi) isn't the whole equation, and we'll never know the full thing, it just a close approximate guess.

Evolution is a working theory, and yes it isn't perfect, but showing that it has a few minor flaws by no means disproves it.

SWK

[Lord Bitememan]

Perhaps someone could settle something for me, just a little carry-over from previous discussions on the matter, and not my realm of expertise (I majored in Poli-Sci and History, not Biology). Why is it referred to as the "Theory or Evolution" and not the "Law of Evolution" or the "Laws of Evolution." I know in the chemistry classes I took we always heard about things like the "Laws of Thermodynamics," And I'm fairly certain that I also heard them refer to the "Laws of Gravity." What threshold is it that evolution has not crossed that these others have which makes them laws and evolution a theory?

[Dasanudas]

As for what causes the difference between theory and law, I couldn't say. If we want to get really hair-splitty (yeah, that's a word...trust me...or I'll shoot the bunny) we could go ahead and say that's nothing is certain because nothing has been tested for all circumstances for all time. That kind of thinking leads to nihilsim, Descartes ideas (everything can be doubted save for doubting itself), and most people I've found who think this (myself included at one point) are very fond of mathematics because I would brave saying that it's nigh impossible to find a time or place in this nominal existence that the principles of math don't work.

What I wanted to bring to light however, is the danger of Theory, no matter how well it correlates with evidence, becoming the judge of new data; this I oppose to new data judging the accuracy of the Theory. A classic example from history I think most will agree with:

Get up in the morning and watch the sunrise - the Earth remains still, the sun moves. Anyone anywhere on Earth can see this happening all day. Thus evidence says that the sun goes around the Earth. Now, some quack named Copernicus (before space flight, mind you), comes out with new evidence that the opposite is in fact true. Do all the scientists of the time get wowed and start testing his stuff to see where it leads? Hardly, he's just about burned at the stake (or was he actually burned? I forget.) This is what I mean by current Theory judging new evidence.

Fast forward to the newer controversy of the day - Theory of Evolution. I don't mean that things change over time, but the current Theory that has a set historical path on species evolution and times for when species appeared and so on. This is basically accepted by the scientific community as the most accurate and correct thing we have to explain species diversity and the like. There's a lot of evidence backing it up too.

Now, unknown to most people, there is actually quite a bit of archeological evidence against a major portion of the Theory of Evolution too. I don't mean the, "Just look, it's obvious to anyone with a brain," stuff, but rather fossils, bones, hard evidence kind of stuff. Specifically, I talk of evidence that shows human interference and civilization dating back much MUCH further than the current understanding of a few hundred thousand years (300,000 I think). Excavations of different types from mining to actual archeological digs have found fully human skeletons that date from geo-positioning (I don't know if that's the right word, basically where it was in the rock strata) to millions of years old. One piece that stuck out in my mind was the discovery of a beatifully worked golden chain embedded into the middle of a piece of coal that dated back about 20 million years.

Now comes the crux. Is this evidence displayed? Is it mentioned, even to discount it? Almost never. Instead it is covered, ignored, and sometimes deliberately destroyed either through physical acts or blatant slander and discredit of the person who discovered it. Often times the methodology of the find is questioned, even though its the same way most accepted archeological finds are done. In other words, to throw out the stuff you don't like, you'd also have to fairly throw out the stuff you do.

There's a term for this process - knowledge filter. For you proactive and new business term freaks out there, consider it a variation of "thinking inside the box." The new evidence (or old, as some items have been found as far back as the 1800s) discounts the Theory, thus it must be wrong. Shouldn't objectivity make it the other way around? The Theory should be suspect if it cannot account for all the evidence? Anyway, just a concern for any field of curiosity, not just the one Theory.

For those interested, a good book to check out about other archeological evidence about humans existing longer than currently thought is Forbidden Archeology by Michael Cremo.

[Elmer J.]

I've been watching this forum carefully, since it's an issue I'm sore over.
I also argue incessantly wit a close friend of mine over it, and these are the conclusions to which I've come.
1. Evolution can be disproven.
2. Evolution has not been disproven.
3. Evolution is the best secular explanation we have at the time.
Science is ever flexible, I've acknowledged this. However, in response to Dasanudas, whose post is too long to quote and too chock-full of information to edit, If the scientific community had accepted Copernicus the moment new evidence arrived, they would also have switched to some dingbat who had some evidence that both the earth, the sun, and a small calf orbited his rear end. If it wasn't hard for Copernicus to gain acceptance for his theories, then how would we know they were worthwhile? The scientific community needs to stand firm until overwhelming evidence is compiled against them.
So if you have secular evidence that conflicts with evolution, be patient. Change takes time, and if it didn't any crackpot would be looked upon as respectable as yourself, and you wouldn't want that.
I personally have read articles and seen evidence for evolution. It's overwhelming. I floor myself thinking about it.
I have not read articles with strong evidence against evolution. All I have had until this point is hearsay that can be traced back to a Baptist with a strong bias.I trust my friend who claims to have very convincing articles by secular authors, but I have not seen them.
And given the religious heat of the issue I will be skeptical of new evidence put before me. There have probably been forgeries on both sides. The only one I can recall was for evolution, but was specifically aimed at placing man's evolution in Britain for racially motivated reasons.

also, if I misread your post and you are debating the path evolution took, don't worry about it. Opinion about that changes all the time. Try and figure out what Ceteans evolved from. It's a headache. I personally believe that mankind and apes have a relatively recent common ancestor, myself. We look so similar, it's hard for me to imagine anything else. Not that I am unwilling to try.

[Robot Jesus]

The difference between a scientific law and a theory is as follows

Its age

The original scientific method: develop a hypothesis, try to prove it right, if successful it’s a law.
The inherent flaw caused the modern scientific method to be created
Develop a hypothesis, try to prove it wrong, if unsuccessful it becomes an accepted theory for now.

The only reason such things are still called laws has more to due with habit and tradition than anything else.