"This is the central argument of evolution deniers: Evolution is an unproven "theory." For science-savvy people, this is an incredibly annoying ploy. While it's true that scientists refer to evolution as a theory, in science the word theory means an explanation of how the world works that has stood up to repeated, rigorous testing. It's hardly a term of disparagement.But for most people, theory means a haphazard guess you've pulled out of your, uh, hat. It's an insult, really, a glib way to dismiss a point of view: "Ah, well, that's just your theory." Scientists use theory in one specific way, the public another — and opponents of evolution have expertly exploited this disconnect.[...]What does she suggest? For truly solid-gold, well-established science, let's stop using the word theory entirely. Instead, let's revive much more venerable language and refer to such knowledge as "law." As with Newton's law of gravity, people intuitively understand that a law is a rule that holds true and must be obeyed. The word law conveys precisely the same sense of authority with the public as theory does with scientists, but without the linguistic baggage."Clive Thompson, Wired.com 10.23.07
Can't believe this hasn't been done already.
4 comments:
My beef with Evolution is that it excludes God from the picture. It also is suggesting that we come from nothing and go to nothing. There is no hope in that. Evolution THEORY is simply a mechanism of Science. Science is simply a collection of understanding of which nothing is a law. Review Kuhn's idea of paradigm shifts.
My beef is that evolution is just a series of Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc fallacies. Paleobiology is so caught up in its own stories-as-truth that, as a huge joint project, it has lost all contact with the fundamental principles of evidence. Stories are not evidence. When evolutionists call out "evidence", what they are really calling out is fabricated extrapolations from the paucity of real physical information that they have gathered.
When confronted with the rational principles of PROOF within the physical realm of reality, the evolutionist bawls, "you just don't understand what evolution really is". Again, what passes for scientific principle these days is story telling. That's all that exists to tie together a moderate grouping of circumstantial evidence. This includes circumstantial relationships within DNA. This evidence is so weak that it cannot even be called a principle, much less a law.
For more information on The principles of evidence, logic and rational thought this website is available:
www.atheism-analyzed.net
Chad S: "My beef with Evolution is that it excludes God from the picture. It also is suggesting that we come from nothing and go to nothing. There is no hope in that."
That's not true. Remember that evolution only occured well after the earth was made, so if you're willing to drop literal reading of Genesis, you can still say that God created life and that the process of evolution did the rest. Like God putting the yeast in, sort of. God is still in the picture, he just don't have a finger in every pie.
As an Atheist I'm obviously not in favour of this, but it shows that Evolution does not exclude any and all gods from the picture, it just excludes the Genesis version (and similar types.
And evolution does not say that we come from nothing nor even go to nothing. The Big Bang, which has nothing to do with evolution did not occur out of thin air but from an extremely dense and hot state. Whatever happened afterwards, there's simply no-one who says that evolution came from nothing.
And when we die, we become food for countless worms.
As for the hope part, well there's no fear in evolution either. Atheists don't fear Hell, but Jesus threatens us with Hell so I presume that many Christians fear Hell. What's Hell to do with hope?
Stan Stephens: "Stories are not evidence".
So, I take it you don't believe the bible or any other holy book with stories?
[Previous deleted post was my own.]
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