“Biological evolution is not a theory - the theory that explains the fact of biological evolution is natural selection of genetic variation. Sorry but you don’t get to control the language.”
Now you are just getting ludicrous. Is this the new approach to the evolution debate? to claim Evolution never really was a theory? and that it is creationists who have tried to make it out to just be a theory?
I am not attempting to control the language. I am making sure apples are apples and oranges are oranges. This requires putting a stop to word games that some evolution proponents hide behind. This especially includes the Talk Origins group of scientism-ists.
And you’ve got it backward: natural selection and genetic variation are observable facts. They are not the theories. They are the data. At the time Darwin coined the term “natural selection” it might have been accurate to call it a hypothesis or theory. Today it is not correct with any degree of precision. For a time it could have been considered a well-supported theory; but in time it has come to be fairly well observed which moves it over to the factual category. Evolution is a theory, so-called, that is supposed to explain (among other things) the origin of species based on these observations.
Darwin started with natural selection and morphological variation which was later replaced by genetics as a more precise measure of inheritable variation. But, though the theory evolved, it never evolved into a fact. While speciation is well-supported if not observed, popular aspects of evolutionary theory are not well-supported such as common descent and the general trajectory of life forms becoming more sophisticated and complex over time. It contains no mechanism to explain why time works for evolutionary progress rather than an increasing likelihood of the deterioration of populations and their eventual extinction. Why does time work for evolutionary progress for living things in general but against the survival of individual living things (which also contain populations of living cells)? Why hasn’t massive amounts of apparent time wiped out life more frequently than it some how (without explanation) came into existence (i.e. biogenesis)?
If you want to talk Esperanto in the ivory towers of science, it is fine by me. But in a public forum such as this, in a court of law such as the Scopes trial I cited, in newspaper editorials and schools, the definition of terms becomes critical to the debate. Words have meanings. Words have consequences. There are massive volumes of laws, rules and regulations that hinge on defining evolution correctly as people understand it.
I’m not conceding an argument because the Talk Origins crowd wants to change the rules during the debate. You can join them on the dark side if you wish. But I’m not budging.
Most of these evolution proponents have an agenda where they feel the need to prove God is not necessary. They prefer a universe with no meaning or purpose. Yet science rests upon the a priori assumption that the universe and nature are intrinsically comprehensible. Life is meaningful. Interestingly our world not only contains many things to support God’s existence, it appears He designed it so we have the possibility to learn about the Universe; because if things were slightly different, much of scientific inquiry would be impossible.
Could you be more wrong? One can infer bit not observe natural selection. One CAN observe the change in DNA of populations and that is by definition, is evolution.
Evolution, ie change, is the observed fact. The theory of natural selection helps to explain and predict this fact.
Natural selection of genetic variation is a theory of evolution. Lamark also had a theory of evolution. Both theories attempted to explain the fact that living populations change.
One theory successfully explained and predicted the observed fact of change in living things, and the other did not. That is why Darwin's theory of natural selection (we now know, as he did not, that what is being selected is DNA variations) is useful to science and Lamarkian evolution is not.
Creationism, of course, is of no use, it leads nowhere and to nothing as far as ANY practical applications.
Science is of use. Creationism is useless.
Science isn't atheism. Do you think the Pope is trying to prove that God is not necessary when he says there is much ‘proof’ of biological evolution?