I don't agree with schools teaching evolution as fact, when it is only theory. The evolution theory is based on assumptions which can't be proven.
'Theory', 'hypothesis' are used in non-technical contexts to mean an untested idea or opinion.
A theory in technical use is a more or less verified or established explanation accounting for known facts or phenomena. e.g. the theory of evolution. A hypothesis is a conjecture put forth as a possible explanation of phenomena or relations, which serves as a basis of argument or experimentation to reach the truth. e.g. "This idea is only a hypothesis".
I always remind those who claim that evolution is "only a theory" that gravity is, too.
There is no accepted theory of gravity, only mathmatical models that describe and predict it, generally. We actually know that those models are wrong at the galaxy scale, because galaxies don't rotate at a rate that is consistant with our models. There is, in fact, no generally accepted theory as to
what gravity actually is yet that doesn't detract from our acceptance that such a force of nature exists, because we can all easily observe it's effects as well as predict it's results.
I know that you guys might consider that semantics, but I bet you all have heard a general explaination of how evolutionary theory works; but if you had any credible explaination of
what gravity is (as opposed to how it acts) then I'd be very impressed. The truth is, that even Darwin stated that his theory of evolution was based upon several assumptions that couldn't be demonstrated in his day, one in particular that has been proven incorrect. That premise was that natural selection (which is a process that can be proven to exist) is the
only process by which new species are created. This has never been demostrated, and likely cannot, even though natural selection is undoubtedly the
dominate process of species change. The proof is in the details of "irreducible complexity". Said simply, if there is
any species with
any features that couldn't be developed by natural selection (within any reasonable probability of mutations occuring in the
same individual organism) then Evolutionary theory is disproven. There exist hundreds of such examples, a couple dozen of which are bluntly obvious. But first, a link that smacks of a quote here....
http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/natural-selection-defies-the-odds/<snip>
Natural selection is, of course, a real force of nature, as demonstrated by the development of drug resistance by the malaria microbe through purely Darwinian processes. But, as Michael Behe has convincingly demonstrated, the power of natural selection is limited. Natural selection can provide a selective advantage by degrading a genome, as it does in the malaria example. But its power to BUILD a complex genome has never been demonstrated in the laboratory. In fact, the laboratory has shown as that over countless trillions of reproductive events, natural selection has NOT created complex new additions to the genome.
When Darwin observed the beaks of Galapagos finches, he was observing small changes in an organism’s phenotype (i.e., the organism’s body plan) that gave the organism a selective advantage and thereby increased its predominance in the population. From this observation Darwin made an inference that has literally changed the world. He inferred that the same process was responsible for creating finches in the first place. Obviously, Darwin did not observe this process create finches. He reasoned, however, that a process that could create one small change in a population of organisms could create other small changes, and over time, those changes would accumulate, and when sufficient changes had accumulated over a long enough time, an entirely new species would emerge. This entirely natural process, Darwin reasoned, was responsible for the creation of all life, from the first single-celled organism on though to human beings themselves.
The important thing always to keep in mind is this: “Darwin inferred . . .” Again, Darwin did not observe one species morphing into another through the process of natural selection. The finches remained finches. They did not change into another kind of bird, much less another kind of species altogether. Nor has anyone since Darwin observed a species morph into another.
The main point is that the power of natural selection to create large, as opposed to small, changes in the genotype and the phenotype of organisms remains, to this day, an inference from the data, not the data itself. If any NDE proponent commenting on this post disputes this assertion, I invite him or her to cite a single example of one species being observed changing into another since Origin of Species was published in 1859.
This gets me back to our discussion of probability. As I said, NDE proponents assume that natural selection has the power to beat the odds and create, for example, highly complex and specified strands of DNA, the creation of which is beyond the power of mere chance. But since no one has ever observed natural selection create complex changes in a strand of DNA (much less create the strand of DNA from scratch in the first place), how can NDE proponents be so dead certain of the staggering, almost God-like powers of creation they attribute to natural selection? One would think they would be more modest in their claims for a process that has never actually been observed. Instead, they bombastically assert that their theory has the same epistemological standing as the theory of gravity.
<snip>
The Theory of Evolution, despite teh provable existance of a process of natural selection, is not equatable with theories of physics that describe gravity.
Dr. Jobe Martin is a former devotee to Evolutionary Theory, who was challenged by his students to
prove that it was correct, and by attempting to do so and failing, began to be convinced of the alternative. He has produced a number of videos that document species that have irreduciblely complex features that could not have arisen by natural selction (that is, could not have aided the organism in surviving to reproduce) unless those features could have arisen simultaniously, an event that is roughly comparable to an address collision in bitcoin. (not impossible, but astronomicly unlikely given the time frame). His most famous subject is the cuddlefish, whose active camo is so advanced that it uses it to put it's prey, literally, into a trance. Yet, if it's camo wasn't almost as advanced as it is, then it's prey wouldn't have been dazzeled. Since the cuddlefish is neither fast enough to catch it's prey, nor it's prey being defenseless otherwise, the cuddlefish would have starved to death or pursued easier prey. Neither path leads to the present condition under natural selcetion alone, thus evolutionary theory is either incomplete or completely inaccurate. Other such examples include the girraffe, a mussle that requires the intervention of a
particular species of minnow to reproduce, and a species of cave insect that only exists in the Mammoth Cave system with no apparent relatives anywhere else. Now this doesnt' p[rove anything either, and Dr. Martin has chosen ID as his alternative theory, which certainly can be wrong. But to assume that the current state of science is correct, in the face of history, is simply assurting another ideology.
