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To: Reuben Hick
I thought some more about the error that you are making in this paragraph:

I must also comment on your confusion between "evidence" and "proof". Evidence is the basis on which theories are constucted. You and I have the exact same evidence, yet we each come up with different theories. I see the Grand Canyon and see a gigantic dam burst, you look at the Grand Canyon and see billions of years of water running thousands of feet uphill. I see aquatic fossils on mountain peaks and say "Noah's Flood", you look at the exact same evidence and come up with laughable theories of how mountains rose up from no where, for no know reason, and did this magically without disturbing the fossil record on top. Yet despite the fact that your interpretation of the evidence leads you to make outrageous unsuportable claims, you have the gaul to say "Creationists are so silly" because for thousands of years we stick with the exact same theory that is consistant with the evidence rather than invent new ones only to be replaced by new ones when a different person interprets the same evidence differently (again).

Part of your misunderstanding appears to lie in a confusion between "Theories" and "Hypotheses". It is true to say the the creationist vs mainstream examples above are different hypotheses about the observed phenomena. However a hypothesis is not a theory, in the scientific sense of the word.

For a hypothesis to become a theory it must go through a demanding set of processes. Scientists try to tear it to pieces by finding logical or evidentiary errors. Observations and tests are suggested which have the potential of falsifying the hypothesis. Predictions are made using the hypothesis and scientists look to see if the predictions come true. Scientists examine the hypothesis to see if there could be a simpler natural explanation of the observed phenomena.

Hypotheses such as evolution, relativity, and plate-tectonics have passed these tests which is why scientists now refer to them as Theories (which has a completely different meaning to the lay word theory which is a synonym of hypothesis.) There is no statement of scientific truth stronger than a Theory (contrary to the common misconception that Laws are more certain than Theories, which is not so, laws are usually just simple mathematical relationships that fall out of certain theories)

The creationist hypotheses like the "Grand Canyon as damburst" and "mountaintop fossils resulting from the flood" on the other hand fail on every count. They don't make successful predictions, they fail the falsification tests, and they tend to be complicated, relying on a number of "miracles" to work at all.

595 posted on 12/12/2004 12:12:56 PM PST by Thatcherite (Conservative and Biblical Literalist are not synonymous)
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To: Thatcherite
For a hypothesis to become a theory it must go through a demanding set of processes. Scientists try to tear it to pieces by finding logical or evidentiary errors.

So you agree that since Evolution has legions of logical and evidentiary errors that it is overly charitable to call it "Theory"?

596 posted on 12/12/2004 12:23:11 PM PST by Reuben Hick
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