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But evolution is not the end-all, be-all.
Well, actually, regarding the study of life on Earth, it really
is the "be-all and end-all", so to speak.
Well, it isn't really the "end-all", because it might be shown to be wrong at a later date.
But that's as likely to happen as the Theory of a Heliocentric Solar Syastem will be shown to be wrong at a later date.
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You're making it out to be a "holy grail,"
Nah, we know that evolution really happens, and nobody has ever seen the Grail.
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and some people don't like evolution as a "holy grail." You largely ignore about my point about how it is presented.
If it was presented accurately, then boo hoo to the people who didn't like it.
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There are two types of theories, empirical and explanatory.
Huh, this is new to me. I am under the impression that all scientific theories need to be both empirical and explanatory.
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The problems do not lie with empirical evolution, it lies with explanatory evolution (namely, how empirical evolution is interpreted and presented). Although they didn't realize it, these people were complaining about the explanatory theory of evolution.
I don't really think there's a difference, mike.
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If evolution is fact, though, does that encourage exploration of the origins of life,
Theories and discussion regarding the origin of life are largely separate from those involving the Theory of Evolution, because the ToE deals with life once it got here, not how it got here.
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criticisms to evolution, and alternative theories?
You are confusing "fact" and "theory".
Yes, it is a fact that evolution happens. We observe the change in allele frequencies in populations over time. This is the fact of evolution.
The Theory of Evolution is the theoretical framework which explains all of the facts as we find them, organizing them into a coherent picture of what the facts tell us is going on. It is a "big picture" kind of idea.
While the fact of evolution is not at all in dispute, the Theory is certainly the topic of much testing, debate and criticism from within the scientific community. That's what scientists do; test theories to see if they break.
This message has been edited by schrafinator, 03-24-2005 09:27 AM