How is Evolution a fact?

lost-apathy, Well, that's right. The FACT that cladistics & stratigraphy match to a statistically significant degree is repeatable. You can do it yourself, if you can be bothered. Generally, however, this is something that is ignored by creo's, generally because they don't understand it.Mark

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

what I said was

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Macroevolution is simply an unprovable assertion made by non-scientists. This is also a fact.

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refering to Joman when he said

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The theory of macroevolution (macroevolution is a unproven assertion)

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I stand corrected as a very poor choice of words. I was not clear on what is "fact", "theory", and "assertions". I should have said the Theory of Macroevolution is an assertion made by non-scientists. What I understand to be true in the science field is there is only the Theory of Evolution, and macro and micro are observations that the theory attempts to explain. My post was certainly not trying to be untruthful. I concede however that being clear on the meanings of fact and theory are very important, as several members have laid out rather well in this thread.I have always accepted that evolution is a change over time. I never saw the need for the words micro and macro until confronted with the creation arguement that micro is fine, but macro is not.I hope I am more clear this time around, I don't want to muddy the waters in this thread. Someone saying relativity and macroevolution are "assertions" while accepting gravity, evololution, disease, etc makes no sense.

Can you repeat the death of Queen Anne? Is it a fact that she is dead? But the "facts" according to the definition given, are certain, since I cannot erroneously believe that I am experiencing a given quale. But people would classify, for example "there is a tiger" as a fact (if there is in fact a tiger) as a fact, rather than a theory. We are free to adopt a different viewpoint ourselves, but we can't claim that our definition is more correct.

I have a Theory, the Theory of Progeny. The Theory states that it is a Fact that you had both Grand Parents and Great Grand Parents.There is an extension to the Theory of Progeny that asserts that it is a Fact that your Great Grand Parents had Parents.Please tell me which of the Facts presented are repeatable.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

among other things. who says they have to be repeatable? theres no requirement for this, we expect things to work the same from moment to moment, unless there is another factor that changes it, but its not nessisary to be repeatable
how can you repeat the fact that the moon exists or life or us?
those are facts but i've never heard anyone say they have to be repeatable before yes and so? are you a YEC then? we have those millions of years, in fact we've had 4.3 billion years everything is from human imagination, it would have to be to be understood by humans, sorry but where else would you expect it from? this always comes down to how people use "fact", by sciences standard, evolution is a fact as much as atoms are or germs or stars or life on this planet

As you say - experiments have to be repeatable. Facts don't. Facts get confirmed by being the only sensible conclusion from the evidence over and over again with different types of completely independent evidence.Example: We develop an experiment to calibrate a genetic clock based on a fossil find in order to predict the approximate ages of various common ancestors. We calculate these ages, and then we can confirm them against the fossil records. Most of the dates are the same, though some are different!Those dates that are the same, have multiple lines of converging evidence for them. It would be perverse to write the fact off as coincidence so we simply call it a fact. The fact isn't repeatable, but the experiment is repeatable. If the experiment was conducted correctly, we should come to the same conclusions and infer the same facts as the first time the experiment was carried out.Experiments are repeatable.
Facts are arrived at over and over again inferring from multiple lines of independent evidence. Sometimes people have very definite ideas on what they think words mean and won't budge, even when presented with a collection of experts in the relevant field who define the word differently. Instead of conceding the point, these people can be very stubborn to the point where they will say the experts are deliberately distorting the meaning of the words just to frustrate the people that define things in a different way (naturally, there is no presented evidence for this conspiracy).Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

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In my view of facts, facts are repeatable. When it comes to science and observation when making a report, you give the methods of how you do the experiement so it can be repeated as many times as desired.

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To restate, it is the result of an experiment that is repeatable not facts.What i find interesting about the idea that evolution is not established and it gets to the original topic of this thread is: speciation and natural selection have both been observed both in nature and in the laboratory so, what is it about evolution that isnt a fact or hasnt been observed? That's microevolution and macroevolution.
These people want to see big things, changes that go to the genus level or beyond. They want to see changes in "kind". The kinds of changes they want to see realistically occur over several species and millions of years.

Absolutely. They apply a sort of special pleading with the way evidence is assessed by scientists in order to come to conclusions about historical events. They are are happy with the establishment of historical facts that are consistent or non-contradictory to their religion's history but they fight tooth an nail over historical facts that are contrary to what a bronze age tribe laid down as coming from their God.If we take this reasoning to its logical conclusion: Because history cannot repeated, nothing can be scientifically established about past events and thus science cannot help convict murderers, learn about battles or burial sites. Facts cannot be established about past events.

Add mutation as an observed fact, with new genes for bacteria to consume nylon and toxic wastes and the like - chemicals that did not exist before man made them. Technically speaking from the modern creationist view speciation is microevolution (MiE), so we have not observed macroevolution (MaE) yet. That is what they currently mean by MaE. That doesn't mean we don't have evidence for it, but it is harder to convey to a crowd reluctant to look at what the evidence says.The real issue though is not evolution - change in species over time - but common descent: the theory that every form of life comes from one special population of unicellular organisms, versus the dogma that every form of life comes from a number of special populations of organisms (number not established, level of developoment not established).The other side of the coin is that the science of evolution is less of a threat to the Young Earth Creationism (YEC) than is the combined evidence of geology, astronomy and physics - the multilayered evidence that the earth is 4.55 billion years old and life is 3.5+ billion years old (+ because the first evidence we have is fully formed cyanobacteria type cells).Enjoy.

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RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
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Common descent isn't a theory, but a fact (as described in the link in the OP). The theory of evolution attempts to explain this fact.

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The theory of evolution is a body of interconnected statements about natural selection and the other processes that are thought to cause evolution, just as the atomic theory of chemistry and the Newtonian theory of mechanics are bodies of statements that describe causes of chemical and physical phenomena. In contrast, the statement that organisms have descended with modifications from common ancestors--the historical reality of evolution--is not a theory. It is a fact, as fully as the fact of the earth's revolution about the sun.

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-FutuymaEdited by Modulous, : added supporting quoteEdited by Modulous, : clearing up the supporting quote.

fact and theory again. It's both. In our experience. Note the use of ancestors - plural not singular.The experience we have is consistent with common descent. The fossil and genetic evidence that we have is consistent with common descent, but these are the facts, not common descent per se. These are the foundation, the evidence on which the theory of common descent in the past is based on.There are gaps that we do not know, there are descents that we posit without data or sure knowledge, dotted lines in the tree of life where new evidence has and will continue to change those descent lines that are posited based on the information - the facts - that we have.Those are theoretical allignments - not fact.The ultimate ur-life as a single species population from which all life sprang is theory, not fact, and one that is being challenged by new findings and new theories from genetics that there was interspecies mixing rather than descent, jumbled roots. We see evidence of this in horizontal gene transfer today as well, that not all genetics comes from {ancestors + mutations}.The evidence and testing show that this theory is robust, yes, but not that it is absolutely fact into the dawn of time.

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RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
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As being defined in the OP, something cannot be both a fact and a theory. There is common descent (fact) and a theory to explain the fact (The theory of evolution). What do you mean, in our experience? The fact that current life on earth shares common ancestry is a fact. The number of ancestors, is not known. Some people contend that universal common ancestry is a fact, but I do not believe that is a sound position to currently be taking. Yes, and the evidence we have confirms it to such a degree that to deny it would be perverse. The definition of fact as laid out in the OP. The fossils are the evidence from which we derive the facts. A subtle but important distinction. That the fossils are the remains of previous forms of life is a fact. They themselves are not facts, they are evidence. Yes, in any history there are gaps, but the facts we don't know don't change what facts are known. We know that Mr Black was murdered (fact derived from the evidence) we know it was with a candle stick (fact from evidence) and we know it was in the dining room (fact from evidence). We also know that there exists a body of evidence (fact from the evidence that there is evidence). What we don't know is who dunnit. That we don't know whodunnit does not change the fact that it happened, where it happened and with what. Universal common descent is a historical hypothesis for which evidence is being gathered to confirm as fact, or otherwise. Facts aren't absolute. We can know certain facts with varying degrees of reasonableness. Universal common descent has some reasonable doubt associated with it in my opinion and so I am not willing to conclude it is a fact.However, common descent is recognized by the relevant experts as a fact. Universal common descent is not a theory (in the scientific sense, it is only a theory in the layman's usage of the word).

Lets go back to the TO article from the OP where the author, Laurence Moran, is making his conclusions:Evolution is a Fact and a Theory

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We also need to distinguish between facts that are easy to demonstrate and those that are more circumstantial. Examples of evolution that are readily apparent include the fact that modern populations are evolving and the fact that two closely related species share a common ancestor. The evidence that Homo sapiens and chimpanzees share a recent common ancestor falls into this category. There is so much evidence in support of this aspect of primate evolution that it qualifies as a fact by any common definition of the word "fact."

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In other cases the available evidence is less strong. For example, the relationships of some of the major phyla are still being worked out. Also, the statement that all organisms have descended from a single common ancestor is strongly supported by the available evidence, and there is no opposing evidence. However, it is not yet appropriate to call this a "fact" since there are reasonable alternatives.

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I read that as pretty solid evidence that common descent is a fact in some cases but not all, and certainly not back to an ur-life species.Where common descent (or even just descent) has not been established to the level of certainty that qualifies as fact, the relationships are hypothetical, based on evidence, and testable - theory.This is no different (as far as I can see) than the elements of evolution that are fact - observed speciation, etc - and elements that are theory - that the mechanism of evolution that applies to known factual speciation events applies to other similar events in the past.

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RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
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Come on, if we can't agree on the difference between fact and theory then how can we blame ignorant creationists when they dismiss evolution as "only a theory".

Because we aren't dismissing anything, simply discussing nomenclature. However, we don't need to agree on our own definitions, we can just look to see how the article defines it. And the answer to the question asked in the topic becomes clear.