Creationists, when you hear about the "theory" of evolution, what you you think that means?

Question

I've heard a lot of explanations that creationists have for the term "theory", all of them come from a position of ignorance or just plain stupidity.
Here is an explanation, in the simplest terms ( just for you creationists, I know we have to keep things VERY simple for you) of the word, 'theory';
A theory is an explanation. The validity of a theory rests upon its ability to explain phenomena. Theories may be supported, rejected, or modified, based on new evidence. Gravitational theory, for example, attempts to explain the nature of gravity. Cell theory explains the workings of cells. Evolutionary theory explains the history of life on Earth.

So you see that there are no laws in Science. Even gravity has no law. (Newton wrote his own "laws" but they are not accepted by modern scientists) nor does relativity or thermodynamics. They are theories and will always remain so.
The same applies to Evolution.
That means something can be true, and a theory at the same time.
Understand?

Oh Di...
How many Effing times do we have to tell you idiots that the "Darwin recanted" story is, like everything else you christians come up with, a lie.
Lady Hope not only never saw Darwin on his death bed, but had'nt so much as corresponded with him for over 2 years before he died.
His daughter, on the other hand, says that Charles Darwin was ever more convinced of evolution the longer he lived.
Funny how reality trumps your lies and myth everytime huh?

DaveE
thanks for being the spokesperson for the idiots out there. You weren't even intelligent enough to read my explanation were you?
Thankfully, morons like you are becoming more and more scarce... except in the southern US of course...

Answer 1

And now we watch as the creationists and Christians put their fingers in their ears and shout "I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" over and over again...

Answer 2

Evolution has two different components. First, that species are related and that they change over time. Second, how and why.

Let's start with the common ground. First, there's the fact (easily provable, not really subject to debate) that different species are related, and that common attributes of species change over time. Humans have gotten taller over the past couple thousand years. Moths change colors. Island variants of species are often smaller. All of these are readily observable from available records. Mendel proved the concept genetics 150 years ago, and science has been able to demonstrate both genetic similarities and genetic drift (changes) ever since. And it doesn't really matter which camp you are in, since only the most fanatic literalists would ever attempt to argue that the world is completely unchanging over millenia. So, let's just accept these premises as fact: species are related and species change over time.

The more complicated question is why do species change and how do related species emerge or die off. Darwin put forth the guess (barely a theory) of "survival of the fittest", called adaptive evolution. This works great to explain the slow gradual changes, but is more shaky on the sudden big changes.

Moderate theologians countered with "Maybe that's true for the slow subtle changes. But we think that God has been tinkering with DNA and creating the big evolution leaps that have occurred." How do they know? Faith. Ok, unprovable but not inherently invalid.

How do we know? We don't. Not having been able to witness a sudden major adaptive shift, the best science can do is try to fit the theory to the available facts. That's what so annoying about the evolution/creationism debate. Those who oppose evolution say that we should ignore the many exampes where we can see direct evidence of change caused by adaptive evolution. They argue that since evolution can't always explain everything, that makes it invalid.

Answer 3

One thing about science is that not all scientists agree what qualifies as science. There are a lot of self appointed would-be-scientific authorities out there that try and discern what qualifies as science and what does not. So not every scientist or person for that matter will agree upon any given definition of a theory. So the debate concerning evolution boils down to a debate on an epistemological level rather than an evidential level.

Epistemology basically accepts that there three ways to discover truth. First, there is truth by deduction. Purely deductive theories are a priori, so they never deal with evidence, so it has little or no use inside of science. Deduction can be used after some truth is discovered inductively.

Things proved inductively have to deal with evidence in a repeatable fashion. After something is repeated enough, it is accepted as truth. This doesn't guarantee that the results are true, but makes it reasonable to believe that they are true. Such truth is discovered empirically, or through experience. This is the realm in which most scientific research is done. Most all theories that are formulated in this realm and are tested over and over are accepted as laws, such as the laws of gravity, or the laws or thermodynamics. Yes, these things are still called laws by the scientific community, because to date, nobody has disproved them, and the newly discovered evidence has strengthened them. Darwin's work in speciation would qualify here. It has been shown to happen in nature that new species evolve from other species, which is what any reasonable person would expect to happen. Most reasonable Christians don't have a problem with this.

The next type of reasoning is not done inductively or deductively, but rather abductively. Abductive theories are theories that are formulated not from empirical evidence, but as a way to explain a vast body of evidence in a coherent fashion. These types of theories cannot be empirically proven or denied. There may be multiple theories for a given phenomenon all derived from the same evidence. These theories are debated based on probability, and generally the most probable explanation is accepted as the best explanation. But again, these types of theories are not empirically, nor deductively provable, so they can never become laws in the sense of inductive theories becoming laws.

Any theory that addresses the origin of life is an abductive theory. This is fundamentally different that speciation, because speciation is empirically provable, while the origin of life is not. To date, nobody has been able to create life in a laboratory, so nobody can make a definitive conclusion about the origin of life either way. So what it comes down to is a debate over the most plausible explanation for the origin of life. The problem that most people have with evolution is that it is so statistically impossible that they reject it on that. Some things in nature are irreducibly complex, and the odds of such structures just randomly appearing are astronomically unfavorable. The complexity of life is so mind boggling that people cannot reasonably accept that it happened as a cosomological accident. It exemplifies design and purpose. Such things require a designer.

Some people reject this hypothesis because it invokes non-naturalistic causes for life, but not all scientists agree on this, because not all scientists are naturalists. This goes back to my original observation that there isn’t a consensus over what is and is not science and what qualifies as a theory and what does not.

Answer 4

Well, I think ya'll sciense junk is all a load of horse pucky.
hoo needs sciense wen U need Jesus?
Jesus can give you anything U want , all you do is ask.

I no that this world is only 6000 years old or so. Cus it makes no sence that it is any older because I dont no about you but I cant think back that far. And everyone nose that carbonated dateing is a load of junk, those sciense people are just playing games to get money from our govermint.
U were not there , and sciense people just make stuff up because they hate God.
They Hate him so much that they try to discover things like dinasoars and call them fossils. Wen they are just bones from creatures 6000 years ago. Now that is a long enough time for lots of animals to be dead and bones to be discovered.

Plus why do we need to lisen to what some people who think they are all smart say when we have word directly from God that he made man and woman in his image, put them here on earth after he made the world in 7 days?
The dinasaurs where with them! They all died in the flood, even the ones that flew and swam!

It all makes perfect sence! U just need to read your good book to make it more clearer.
Pray the Lord's prayer that you will see that sciense is all lies and pervershin and except Jesus into your heart so that you can no better the truth!

Answer 5

Darwin new his theory would cause this crap. That's why he sat on in so long, until Wilson made the same discoveries independant of him! Only after they had both corroberated each other's information were either one of them willing to bring the theory to the fore, because they knew!
Those poor men.

Answer 6

I skipped your dissertation so that I could answer your question. A theory: A proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural, in contrast to well-established propositions that are regarded as reporting matters of actual fact. Gen 1:1 - 2:3.

Answer 7

I agree that a theory is an explanation. If I attached the word "theory" to creation I would have "creation theory". Why would you have a problem with that? I could say that it means "the explanation of how GOD created us".

Would you agree?

Answer 8

Fine, I think your idea of "theory" means "if you raise up good points against this idea then you are against science and an idiot!!!"
How does your theory deal with the FACT that nearly 100% of known mutations can be demonstrated to be deleterious?
Test your ideas, then I will have respect for them.

Answer 9

Darwin disproved his own theory before he died. Does history forget what some want it to.

Answer 10

It is a theory ... but our public schools teach it as fact. Visit a museum .... millions billions of years ago. blah, blah blah.