What constitutes a scientific proof?

Question

I am looking for a purely objective scientic answer here, not opinion. The reason I am asking is because sometimes people refer to evolution as 'the theory of evolution' and other times I hear it refered to as 'a scientific proof'. Again, I'm not looking for a beliefe here, I just want to know, scientifically speaking, which one is it?

Answer 1

The only place where you can prove something is in the field of mathematics. Everything else is just based in the experiments that are done repeatedly and hold true for certain condition. Remember that you must be able to test something to be able to "prove" or "disprove". You can't design a test which shows that there is God.

Answer 2

ALL scientific theories are just that - theories. They can never be proved correct, because we never know when a new experiment or discovery will prove them wrong.

Newtonian physics was thought to be 100% correct, until relativity and quantum mechanics both showed that it was not correct, but merely an excellent approximation to the truth (it does not predict the orbit of Mercury with complete accuracy, for instance).

Now, evolution is an historic fact, as the fossil record clearly shows. BUT, Darwin's theory of evolution is a theory that can never be proven to be 100% correct. It is a theory of HOW evolution actually works, and not speculation as to whether or not it happened. The fossil record clearly shows that it did happen.

Evolution is a fact the same way gravity is a fact, but there are theories of evolution the same way there are theories of how gravity works. Darwin's theory is one of them. The other is the theory of intelligent design (ID). This is the theory that at least some aspects of life, such as the early cells, were designed by someone. A group of alien scientists, one of the gods of the ancient pantheons, the Judeo-Christian God, who knows? It is taken seriously by a small minority of scientists, including Francis Crick.

Answer 3

In a sense, there's no such thing as "scientific proof". You can have a million experiments that indicate a theory is true, but it's always possible that the next experiment will show it isn't.

We also talk about the "theory of gravity", even though nobody seriously doubts that it's true. Interestingly, we also talk about things like "Newton's laws" in physics, even though we know those "laws" are technically wrong: they don't account for relativistic effects. Of course, relativistic effects are pretty much meaningless for everyday practical purposes.

Answer 4

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Answer 5

...Reading it in the enquirer