Or that Michael Jordan played basketball? Or that Michael Jordan exists?
I think you lost me.
I have two apples. You give me two more apples. I now have four apples.
In what system would you be able to say I now have zero apples (assuming you are not just playing with the arbitrary words we use to represent it)?
I cringe when I hear people say “evolution is just a theory.” So is the theory of an atom, but I don’t see anybody volunteering for ground zero when nations test their atomic bombs, and telling us, “it’s only a theory.”
Scientific theories are considerably different when based on the empirical method. Some scientific theories are better than others. The theory of evolution has mountains of scientific data that support it, and it’s not going anywhere. Each new fossil discovery can either add to the credibility of it, but also has the potential to make it falsifiable if certain fossils were to start being found at different layers. It hasn’t happened. The theory of evolution is testable, falisifiable, it has all the great attributes that any good scientific theory has.
Nobody said it better than the late great Gould concerning how evolution was both fact and theory. The second post by Alka Seltker that supplies the link has one of the most often quoted pieces by Gould concerning this matter.
Stop thinking so three-dimensionally!
“Creationists make it sound as though a ‘theory’ is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night.” - Isaac Asimov.
“To those who are trained in science, creationism seems like a bad dream, a sudden reliving of a nightmare, a renewed march of an army of the night risen to challenge free thought and enlightenment.” - Isaac Asimov
Modular artimetic, 4 ≡ 0 (mod 4)
I don’tlike saying evolution is a fact, it’s a scientific theory and like any scientific theory it shouldn’t be treated like a golden calf and should always be open to falsification.
That said, imo, evolution should be regarded as the greatest theory in the natural sciences, it’s applications go even beyond biology (e.g. evolutionary algorithms).
Though you woudl have to question, given the reams of independent data supporting evolution, if were possible that a theory of the origin of the species outside the evoltuionary paradigm could explain that data better than evolutionary theory. IMO any ‘fact’ or theory is disputable, but there are some that are so well-supported it would seem like a fool’s errand to do so (without a compellign reason). The evolutionary pardigm would be one of these theories.
This is useful assuming you’re using numbers to represent apples. Use them to represent positions on a circular gauge, something like a clock, with the positions 0, 1, 2, 3 on it. If you add 1 to 0 you get to 1, but if you add 1 to 3 you loop back to 0. In that world, 2 plus 2 gets you to 0.
Math is all about playing with arbitrary words! That’s how it works!
Those are really weak examples. The fact of evolution is so pervasive it can be hard to know where to start. We have an extensive fossil record that shows the chronology of the appearance of species. The simplest ones emerged first, and the more complex ones later. The later ones are variations of the earlier ones. Species often have vestigial features from their ancestors (e.g., tiny tail bones in humans). You can see that most changes, even dramatic ones, are simply variations of existing parts; e.g., zebras have the same number of neck bones as a tiny shrew and birds’ wings are modified arms.
Evolution was pretty much a given before Darwin, he “just” provided a mechanism
All of this was know before modern knowledge of DNA and genes, but now we have a huge number of other facts that further back up the idea that complex things evolved from simpler things over time.
If someone wants to say that God is behind the whole thing and pooh pooh Darwin’s mechanism that is fine, but the facts remain that species emerged over time and were made by modifying earlier stuff rather than creating each from scratch.
But that’s just because we have changed the definition of species to apply to groups that do not interbreed to create fertile offspring as opposed to can not. It’s pretty weak sauce to use that as an example of speciation.
Not to mention that fact that the BSC (Biological Species Concept) isn’t really geared toward dealing with organism that don’t occur in the wild. We just define domesticated populations to be the same species as their wild ancestors.
So I would question the original statement that those populations are considered distinct species.
Sorry but that does not help my admittedly math challenged brain. Not your fault though. I’m just not educated enough to know what the hell you are talking about.
I do not want to hijack this thread further but it is interesting enough I am considering another thread to talk about it. IMO you are pulling a fast one on me here. While mathematically viable (I think) you have taken an infinite number line and snipped it to only allow a few number then curved the line into a circle.
Maybe in math there are reasons for this but in the physical world 2+2=4 (unless I have two apples and you give me two antimatter apples in which case we would indeed be left with zero apples…and no me or you either if we are anywhere near that 
).
Mathematics is a system of logic, where relationships like you guys are discussing are either true or false, depending on the assumption (axioms) you start with. I wouldn’t call mathematical statements “facts”.
Facts are simply observations that we make about the real world. Hypothesis are speculations we make about why the facts are what they are. Theories are hypothesis that stand the test of scrutiny and make predictions about the real world that, when tested, turn out to be true.
Missed the edit:
Actually, written out, I guess that is really 2+(-2) = 0 so not the same thing.
Makes sense and works for me.
You should email a few politicians with that one.
Derleth in the post below pretty much explains what modular aritmetic is.
I assume that in at least one of the GOP debates, they will be asked who “believes” in evolution. Are any of the current crop of GOP candidates not creationists? I would suspect Ron Paul and maybe Romney, but I really don’t know. John McCain was one of the few who raised his hand in the 2008 debate.
Talking to my GF yesterday she mentioned John Huntsman is cool with evolution.
I have not checked myself but I trust my GF got it right.
I doubt Huntsman has a prayer of winning the nomination though.
Not to be too pedantic about it, I suppose that there is nothing wrong with calling evolution a “fact”, if you are using that term in the colloquial sense. A scientist shouldn’t use it that way, but for everyday conversation, I think it’s fine.
For the purposes of debates on this MB, my personal preference would be to stick to the term of art usage that scientists would use.