Here’s a useful web site for those people who claim that evolution is “only a theory,” an argument that’s so ignorant that it’s not even wrong.
7 thoughts on “Not Just A Theory”
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Here’s a useful web site for those people who claim that evolution is “only a theory,” an argument that’s so ignorant that it’s not even wrong.
Comments are closed.
I have to admit that I worry about people that get so worked up about this. I mean, if that much of your self esteem is wrapped up in evolution on either side – you need to step back for a moment and rethink your priorities.
And anyway, it is just a theory – just like general relativity et all. – and so the only thing we REALLY know is that it’s wrong. Because eventually, someone will say “what about the snarflat?”, heads will slap foreheads, and the theory will be updated.
And if they have any brains at all they will call the updated theory “the theory of god changing stuff” – and everyone will be happy.
Oy, people who argue about the precise meaning of words, because that will determine the underlying reality, are a complete mystery to me.
I mean, a spade is a spade, even if a very learned man — or a majority of the population in a plebiscite — calls it a zebra.
Then again, maybe this is a useful test to distinguish true thinking men from mere hairless apes. If you’re unable to comprehend the difference between reality and the words (fallible) humans use to describe that reality, then you belong in the latter class, and we can safely put you in a (nice, well-heated) cage and feed you bananas from time to time.
Because eventually, someone will say “what about the snarflat?”, heads will slap foreheads, and the theory will be updated.
Yes, but it’s a question of magnitude. Also, “updated” as in revised is the operative word. I can easily see the theory of evolution being revised in small ways to account for recent discoveries regarding epigenetics and how environmental factors may impact gene expression and such. But let’s be serious. No one is going to slap their foreheads and say “By damn we had it wrong all along, the human race descended did from bovids rather than hominids.” Creationist would have us believe the latter could happen any day rather than the former.
And if they have any brains at all they will call the updated theory “the theory of god changing stuff” – and everyone will be happy.
Unrealistic. Which god? Gaia? Yahweh? Allah? Brahma? Waheguru? Ahura Mazda? The Great Spirit? Demeter? Tiamat? Etc. Etc. Etc. No way everyone will be happy.
Okay, so if it’s not “just a theory,” what is it?
Of course evolution is a theory. “Germs cause disease” is also a theory. “Apples fall downward because of gravitational attraction” is also a theory. So is “plants convert the energy of sunlight into chemical energy”. And so forth …
It’s a useless website. One cannot learn from that website alone whether evolution is a sound theory, just as my blog alone isn’t useful for learning about fractals or Paris Hilton’s travel plans.
To paraphrase Calvin (the ‘toon, not the theologian) – who once said that anything that can’t be explained in ten seconds isn’t worth knowing – I state that anything that can’t be explained in ten seconds is difficult for average folks to believe.
Most people know that mixing two chemicals together can generate new chemicals, and that a microbe is a bag of chemicals, and thus have no difficulty grasping the notion that a direct chemical reaction can permanently alter a microbe’s chemical makeup.
But many average folks do not know how to grasp the notion of a very different process, by which some input other than a direct chemical reaction causes a multicellular organism to generate entire new cells. People discussing this topic get easily distracted by a lot of side issues, but conversation rarely comes to this key stumbling block. To a lot of average folks, the process of multicellular evolution that I have described defies common sense; evolutionists must explain how it does not.