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Author Topic:   Does teaching of evolution cause social decay?
Sylas
Member (Idle past 5260 days)
Posts: 766
From: Newcastle, Australia
Joined: 11-17-2002


Message 102 of 137 (106193)
05-07-2004 3:53 AM
Reply to: Message 100 by coffee_addict
05-07-2004 3:18 AM


Actually, I think evolution is considered a fact.
Lam writes:
Mainstream science does NOT consider evolution as fact!!!
I think it does, in so far as anything is considered a fact in science. In principle, of course, any conclusions in science are subject to revision in the light of new evidence; but generally scientists do find things out, and are willing to call a sufficiently well established conclusion a fact.
For example, it is a fact that your body is made up of atoms.
It is also a fact that you are descended from creatures living millions of years in the past that were not human.
Allow me to quote from Evolution as Fact and Theory by S. J. Gould, first written in 1981 and published as an essay in the collection Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes (Gould, 1994).
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 do not go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's, but apples did not suspend themselves in mid-air, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from apelike ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other, yet to be discovered.
Moreover, "fact" does not mean "absolute certainty." [...] In science, "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent." I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.
I consider that science is pretty good at making a meaningful distinction between things that we have found out and can build upon, and things which remain speculative. Biological evolution, and the relationship of diverse life forms from very different forms through diverging chains of descent over millions of years, is in the former category.
Cheers -- Sylas

This message is a reply to:
 Message 100 by coffee_addict, posted 05-07-2004 3:18 AM coffee_addict has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 104 by coffee_addict, posted 05-07-2004 4:01 AM Sylas has not replied

  
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