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 cant 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 worlds data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts dont go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einsteins theory of gravitation replaced Newtons in this century, but apples didnt suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape-like ancestors whether they did so by Darwins proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered. Moreover, fact doesnt mean absolute certainty; there aint 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
Posted on: Thu, 22 May 2014 22:49:04 +0000
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