Re: [Phys-l] Global Evolution as fact

[Hugh Haskell <haskellh@verizon.net>]

At 22:59 -0500 01/08/2011, Mike Viotti wrote:
> Why is there a need to push for global evolution as fact?  By claiming it
> is, scientists open themselves up to the errors of history (as Bill
> mentioned below), but I think we do ourselves a more grave injustice.  If we
> try to claim something as fact that is not, we weaken the label of "theory"
> by making it appear second best to the label of "fact."  In a world where
> very few people actually understand what a "theory" is to begin with, we'd
> do better by explaining and defending the theory as it stands and, while
> we're at it, defending and explaining the idea of "theory" in general.  At
> least that's my stance.

Evolution is not a fact. It is a theory. And a theory is something 
that makes a whole lot of facts coherent, so it is much more 
important than merely a fact.

A theory is more than a fact, and evolution accounts extraordinarily 
well for more facts from more threads of study and different, even 
unrelated, disciplines than just about any other theory that we have 
for anything. In that sense Evolution is very much more than a fact 
or even a collection of facts. Of all the theories that we have in 
science, evolution is the least likely to be overturned at any time 
in the future.

To set fact and theory against each other is a serious scientific 
mistake, since the purpose of a theory is to explain facts that have 
been observed, and to predict facts that might be observed in the 
future. The way the word has been used here is more akin to 
hypothesis. But even a hypothesis cannot be considered a fact. Facts 
are data--the data that either confirm or dispute a hypothesis. When 
we build a structure that accounts for all or almost all of the facts 
regarding a particular line of study, then and only then to we have a 
theory.

Unfortunately the words theory and facts are misused by the general 
public and are considered as more or less opposites. But not only are 
they not opposites, they are not even synonyms. They are different 
things altogether, and really, don't even fit in the same taxonomical 
chain.

So to call evolution a fact is an error, but not the one that the 
general public might assume, since the theory of evolution is quite 
probably the final explanation of a huge body of facts that have been 
accumulated over the past several centuries. So we can have great 
confidence that no major changes to the theory are likely to ever be 
made, but we must not make the mistake of conflating fact and 
theory--they are very different things, and if we create a hierarchy 
of importance, theory stands well above mere facts.

Hugh
--

Hugh Haskell
mailto:hugh@ieer.org
mailto:haskellh@verizon.net

It isn't easy being green.

		--Kermit Lagrenouille