The Undeniable, Incontrovertible Fact of Evolution…

…explained for the benefit of some of my young student friends and relatives here in South Carolina who appear to have acquired most of their science education from Sunday school teachers.

In popular usage, the word theory is often used to signify a conjecture, a guess, or a speculation.  In scientific usage, a theory does not mean an unsubstantiated guess or hunch, as it can in everyday speech. A theory is a logically self-consistent model or framework for describing the behavior of a related set of natural or social phenomena. It originates from or is supported by experimental evidence. In this sense, a theory is a systematic and formalized expression of all previous observations, and is predictive, logical and testable. As such, scientific theories are essentially the equivalent of what everyday speech refers to as facts.

Wait Now. Let's stop right here to make sure all of you understand what we have just said: In science lingo, in some cases, when dealing with certain broad scientific categories the word theory is used to describe the collection of all observable facts about the phenomenon in question. So just as the theory of gravity, as described by Isaac Newton was true when he described it and called it the theory of gravity, it remained true when Dr. Einstein and others discovered more about it years later even though the laws of thermodynamics and Einstein's general theory of relativity changed the whole meaning and application of the laws of gravity.  But the theory of gravity remains a theory, and it remains true and always will remain true. The apple will always fall from the tree. The second law of thermodynamics is not going to be suspended for anybody, not Moses,. not Jesus, not Houdini, not anybody.

Alright let's keep going.  

This is what the late, great Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould had to say about creationists’ deliberately dishonest use of the word, “theory” as it applies to Evolution:

“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 do not go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's, but apples did not suspend themselves in mid-air, 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.”

More quotable scientists:

"The statement that organisms have descended with modifications from common ancestors--the historical reality of evolution--is not a theory. It is a fact, as fully as the fact of the earth's revolution about the sun."

Douglas Futuyama, professor of ecology and evolution at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.  

"Evolution is a fact, not a theory".

Carl Sagan, noted astronomer, astrophysicist and author.

"Darwin...finally and definitely established evolution as a fact."

"It is time for students of the evolutionary process, especially those who have been misquoted and used by the creationists, to state clearly that evolution is a fact, not theory."

And more from Professor Futuyama:

"Darwin provided abundant evidence for the historical reality of evolution—for descent, with modification, from common ancestors. Even in 1859, this idea had considerable support. Within about 15 years, all biological scientists except for a few diehards had accepted this hypothesis. Since then, hundreds of thousands of observations, from paleontology, biogeography, comparative anatomy, embryology, genetics, biochemistry, and molecular biology, have confirmed it. Like the heliocentric hypothesis of Copernicus, the hypothesis of descent with modification from common ancestors has long held the status of a scientific fact. No biologist today would think of publishing a paper on "new evidence for evolution," any more than a chemist would try to publish a demonstration that water is composed of hydrogen and oxygen. It simply hasn't been an issue in scientific circles for more than a century."