From:    Simon Ewins
To:      Dan Forster                            Msg #988, Apr-19-94 01:36:00
Subject: a religious state

 df> Evolution, the last time I was taught it, was still
 df> considered just a theory even by some of the more
 df> honest profs that taught it.

 Then your education was abysmal. Your teachers failed to get you to
 understand that there is no hierarchy involved. Theories explain
 observations. The observations are not a step above the theory that explains
 them. Using the phrase "just a theory" speaks volumes about how seriously
 anyone should take whatever else you might have to say.

 This quote is by Stephen J. Gould from "Evolution as Fact and Theory"
 published in Discover magazine in May of 1981...

  "In the American vernacular, "theory" often means "imperfect fact" - part
   of a hierarchy of confidence running downhill from fact to theory to
   hypothesis to guess. Thus the power of the creationist argument: evolution
   is "only" a theory and intense debate now rages about many aspects of the
   theory.  If evolution is worse than a fact, and scientists can't even make
   up their minds about the theory, then what confidence can we have in it?
   Indeed, President Reagan echoed this argument before an evangelical group
   in Dallas when he said (in what I devoutly hope was campaign rhetoric):
   'Well, it is a theory.  It is a scientific theory only, and it has in
   recent years been challenged in the world of science - that is, not
   believed in the scientific community to be as infallible as it once was.'

   Well evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are
   different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts
   are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and
   interpret facts.  Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival
   theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced
   Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair,
   pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape-like ancestors whether
   they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be
   discovered.

   Moreover, 'fact' doesn't mean 'absolute certainty'; there ain't no such
   animal in an exciting and complex world. The final proofs of logic and
   mathematics flow deductively from stated premises and achieve certainty
   only because they are NOT about the empirical world. Evolutionists make no
   claim for perpetual truth, though creationists often do (and then attack
   us falsely for a style of argument that they themselves favor). In science
   'fact' can only mean 'confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse
   to withhold provisional consent'. I suppose that apples might start to
   rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics
   classrooms.

   Evolutionists have been very clear about this distinction of fact and
   theory from the very beginning, if only because we have always
   acknowledged how far we are from completely understanding the mechanisms
   (theory) by which evolution (fact) occurred. Darwin continually emphasized
   the difference between his two great and separate accomplishments:
   establishing the fact of evolution, and proposing a theory - natural
   selection - to explain the mechanism of evolution."


 I would also strongly suggest that you journey to the library and read some
 of Robert Root-Bernstein's essays. His explanations of what is meant by
 various scientific terms will prove useful to you. A sample...

  "Philosophers of science and of religion have documented a wide range of
   differences between scientific and religious explanations.  Briefly, the
   two sorts of explanations are characterized as follows. Scientific
   theories are (1) comprised of contingent or tentative knowledge which is
   (2) organized to be operationally useful for (3) solving problems
   concerning particular aspects of nature that (4) exist in the here and
   now.  Scientific explanations may not have recourse to final causes and
   may only be stated in terms of secondary ones. Because scientific
   knowledge is contingent, and because the causes invoked can never be final
   ones, science must promote (5) skeptical consideration of (6) alternative
   explanations that (7) are evaluated against one another on the basis
   empirical and logical tests.

   Religious beliefs are usually characterized very differently.  Religious
   beliefs are (1) comprised of absolute knowledge ("Truth") (2) concerning
   values and morals that (3) direct universal aspects of human existence and
   (4) emphasize the supernatural, either in time (e.g., afterlife) or in
   space (e.g. Heaven). Religious explanations are stated in terms of a final
   cause (i.e. some sort of god ).  Because religious beliefs are absolute,
   and because they are based upon supernatural (and thus unobservable)
   causes, religion promotes (5) faith in (6) an orthodox doctrine that is
   (7) established by reliance upon authority (e.g., a holy man, a sacred
   text, or a revelation)."