Post
Topic
Board Politics & Society
Re: 22 Messages From Creationists To People Who Believe In Evolution
by
Peter Lambert
on 25/02/2014, 16:17:22 UTC

I just noticed the all-caps "THEORY" in the post you quoted and it reminded myself of how it is amusing that these people never seem to understand what the word 'theory' means in a modern scientific context. Then using it as damning "evidence" that because that word which they don't understand has been used to describe evolution, therefor evolution must be incorrect.

From wikipedia just in case the cognition to seek out the definition is also missing:

Quote
In modern science, the term "theory" refers to scientific theories, a well-confirmed type of explanation of nature, made in a way consistent with scientific method, and fulfilling the criteria required by modern science. Such theories are described in such a way that any scientist in the field is in a position to understand and either provide empirical support ("verify") or empirically contradict ("falsify") it. Scientific theories are the most reliable, rigorous, and comprehensive form of scientific knowledge,[2] in contrast to more common uses of the word "theory" that imply that something is unproven or speculative (which is better defined by the word 'hypothesis').[3] Scientific theories are distinguished from hypotheses, which are individual empirically testable conjectures, and scientific laws, which are descriptive accounts of how nature will behave under certain conditions.[4]

I've never quite understood how evolution is testable so as to be considered a scientific theory.

If you find a fossil that does not fit into the evolutionary timeline, like if you find a dog fossil in rocks 100 million years old, that might shed doubt on the theory of evolution.

That qualifies as testing?

That method of "testing" seems more like observation.

Yes, testing hypothesis and theories is done by making observations. How else would you test a theory?