Evolution is a theory. In science, that doesn’t not mean a hairbrained, wild-ass idea that can be ignored. It’s an extremely good one, and explains our numerous observations better than anything else we know, but it is a theory:
from UC Berkeley:
The anti-evolutionists misuse and misunderstand the term theory as it is used in science. Here’s hoping you aren’t one of them.
Der is right. Evolution is simply not a theory. Evolution is a fact, just like gravity. There are various competing theories of how exactly evolutionary mechanics work. Just like gravity.
But evolution and gravity are both rock-solid facts.
Well, that is not exactly right; yes, it is a theory, but it is also a fact.
If evolution is false I’d be stuck so deep in Solispist denial of everything to not know what to think. Clearly my senses weren’t reliable.
But the panda’s thumb (to use Gould’s example) is pretty much an example of a jury-rigged spanner.
I’m not sure I understand your point. Could you explain it for me?
I’d be curious to know what is right if evolution is wrong. What exactly would show it to be junk science? Creation 6,000 years ago? Some degree of intelligent design? It the latter, intervention by space aliens (or pTerry’s world builders) would be a lot more probable than any god.
The OP might as well ask what if we discovered that we didn’t really grow up with our parents, but got inserted into earth by a flying saucer a year ago. Just about as plausible.
My assumption is that life as it exists evolved through natural selection or was programmed into existence by computers as part of the Matrix.
So if evolution is discovered to be junk science, this proves the Matrix theory is true.
It is possible to have a theory (used in the scientific sense) that is so rock solid that it is treated as a fact. The two terms are not mutually exclusive.
I say again: The two terms are not mutually exclusive. Nowhere will you find me arguing that one precludes the other.
Pandas, like many mammals, have paws with digits at the end. Pandas, however, unlike most mammals also have a seperate thumblike digit.
Zoologists who have studied panda anatomy have found that the thumb is not a true digit - it’s actually an elongated wrist bone. Other species have this wrist bone but it’s nowhere near as large and doesn’t protrude from the limb. And pandas also have an analogous elongated ankle bone which protrudes from their hind legs but isn’t long enough to be useful as a digit.
The point that evolutionary scientists have made is that nobody would have intentionally set out to design a digit this way. If somebody was designing a panda from scratch, they would have just given it a regular thumb. They wouldn’t have given it five regular digits and then turned a wrist bone into a pseudo-digit. And there would have been no reason to give pandas an elongated ankle bone which serves no use.
The most obvious explanation is that there was no design. Nobody set out to give pandas thumbs. They just developed them by accident by a series of random mutations that happened to work out - ie evolution.
I think it’s simplest to say that the word “theory,” in science, means"explanation." It doesn’t mean hypothetical or unproven. It means a prevailing explanation supported by strong evidence. Gravity is a theory, the atom is a theory, it is a theory that germs cause disease. None of those things carry the slightest doubt as to veracity. They are all proven facts, and so is evolution. Evolution might even be the most hardy of all f them since it has been the most strenuously and continuousy challenged and tested for the last 150 years.
Right, but evolution IS fact. As has been pointed out, it’s been observed. You have observed it yourself if you’ve ever had to go get a flu shot, or caught a cold (there are myriad examples…take your pick).
So…it’s a ‘theory’ AND it’s a fact at the same time. The theory of evolution involves various mechanisms by which species evolve. The fact of evolution involves the same sorts of observable data that tell us that gravity is a ‘fact’…we can observe it’s effect directly, after all, even if we only have theories as to what makes it tick.
Finding out that evolution was ‘junk science’ would be, as a previous poster pointed out, the same as finding out tomorrow that gravity in fact didn’t work because we were all busily falling away from the earth. It would be that profound. It would basically turn our entire body of science on it’s head, and we’d have to start thinking about game theory (as in, we are actually in a gigantic virtual world that some vast 10 year old is playing and getting bored, so decided to switch the rules to gank the 15 year old griefer down the street).
ETA: Sorry, my post was directed towards Musicat…I just can’t keep up trying to post on my iPad. 
-XT
Well, yes, but it is a fact that you did not say that it was also a fact until I mention it..
I’m just also saying, I was not contradicting you.
But we’re not talking about that. Evolution is a fact, like gravity. We know it happens. That’s not theory at all. There are several theories on how evolutionary mechanics work. But “evolution is factual” is as factual as “gravity exists”.
If tomorrow, for instance, punctuated equilibrium was shown to have more merit than gradualism (and I’m way oversimplifying here), evolution would still be as factual as ever, we’d just be modifying the theories we use to talk about it.
Not only is it absurd to speak of evolution being “discovered to be junk science”, as so many other posters have already alluded to, but there’s no particular connection between acceptance or not of evolution, and belief or lack thereof in God. There are plenty of folks who both accept the truth of evolution and believe in God. In fact, it displays rather a lack of faith to even think that evolution in some way discredits God-- The God I believe in is by far powerful enough and elegant enough to be able to create a Universe that would evolve.
I suppose evolution would become “junk” if carbon dating were disacovered to be misunderstood. But it’s not me saying that it will.
No, evolution isn’t dependent on carbon dating - which after all came about much later than Darwin. We can see evolution happening in labs; it needs to be taken into account with everything from pesticide resistance to cancer. Again; at this point, disproving evolution would be like trying to disprove gravity.
Well, it’s not totally unconceivable that it could be shown at some point that the mechanisms of mutations are too random and too slow paced to have resulted in such a variety of species perfectly fitted to their environment, or at least that it is highly unlikely.
I’m assume it’s the kind of scenario the OP had in mind. It’s discovered that evolution exists but can’ t explain all the facts.
Then, yes, a “designer” toying around to get whatever result he wanted to begin with (say, octopuses dominating the world) would be a possible explanation.. But of course it wouldn’t be an evidence for the Abrahamic god, and not even for any god at all (aliens, our world being an hyperealistic SIM game, whatever).
Oh, Elder Gods, not the stupid watchmaker analogy. Look, it’s inherently flawed. TAke, for instance, that we notice the watch as designed in contrast to the natural world around it, and then turn around and say no, wait, that’s designed too. But how, then, did we spot a difference between the watch’s complexity and that of Nature? There must be some style of difference there, that we then want to ignore in order to do our special pleading.
Anyway, as I’ve pointed out before, fantastically complex ordered designs appear without any direction all the time in nature. In ways we can actually see happening. Snowflakes, crystals, mudcracks, cross-bedding, oolite, psolite- are these designed?
It has the word "cross’ right in it. Obviously God did it.
