Why do evolutionists act as if their theory is fact?

Why do evolutionists often act as if their theory is scietific fact?

Jaz, I've been an atheist all my life, and even I found your use of the term "god" in quotation marks to be remarkably offensive, especially for someone in the position of so-called "advisor." Who on earth do you think you are to trivialize someone's ethos in such a manner?

And on a personal level, someone with such hideous grammar, spelling and punctuation skills as yourself has absolutely no place in acting intellectually self-righteous.

Because it has been peer-reviewd and checked through from all angles. The theory matches observed facts, and is changed as necessary when new information is discovered. Life makes sense when viewed through the understanding that it evolved. And I'm speaking as a Christian here, so I also believe life makes sense through Jesus. To my mind it's rather irrational and, frankly, rude to imply that God and evolution are mutually exclusive.

Because it is a matter of faith, they believe that what they think is true. Like creationist, they believe that what they think is true. Both sides say that they have facts but both are “theories” held by faith. Opposite sides of the same coin, faith.

First, there are no "evolutionists" or "darwinists" any more than there are "gravitationists" or "relativityists". It's a scientific theory, not a belief.

Second, it's important to understand the difference between scientific fact and theory:
- Scientific facts are observations about the world around us.
- Theories are ways to explain those observations.

With that in mind, evolution is both a theory and a fact: We observe that things evolve (the fact) and we posit a theory as to how it happens (the theory). For more details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_as_theory_and_fact

No one likes to be wrong do they?

its obviouse that evolution occured now isnt it
or do you still think your "god" did it
...fossils of plants and animals are pretty much enough
there not the same looking things as nowdays but thats because they evolved
and if your wondering why there isnt "preeof" of all the other connections betrween animals or anything sits because
its survival of the fittest,
connections between animals occur in very VERY small numbers,
what doesnt make it...die
those that die either get eaten by other animals
or are unlikely to be found or even exist now because it was so long ago, and there was so VERY few of them

jaz whatever mikeh says
You are absolutely correct

evoution doent make sence in many ways.
and evolution is a belife. it requiors you to belifie in something that isnt proven that takes faith

blankman: What makes sense to you (or me) is irrelevant to the validity of a scientific theory. All that matters is what predictions it makes, and if they're borne out.

As far as "believing in something that isn't proven", _nothing_ is conclusively proven. The whole point of science is that everything is open to disproof if contradictory evidence is found. I don't expect you consider "gravity" to require belief, though?

Because it has been repeatedly proven, most recently and most conclusively by genetic research (and before that, by direct observation of species formation, by studying the fossil record, by research in comparative anatomy, and by a host of other means).

as a science student, I have found its not only evolution that is taught as fact but actually a whole lot of other things. The fact is, no one knows. We have theories and until they are disproved, a lot of them are treated as if they are correct.

I am a creationalist personally. I do believe in evolution as for the most part it is perfectly logical, just different phenotypes being more favoured under different conditions as well as gene mutation etc. Doesnt mean I believe we used to be apes no matter what genetic evidence there is. We have about 99% the same genome as a fruit fly, doesnt mean we used to be fruit flies does it?

And to people who want to insult others including myself for believing in a higher power, I dont insult what you believe and I think we deserve the same respect.

"as a science student, I have found its not only evolution that is taught as fact but actually a whole lot of other things. The fact is, no one knows. We have theories and until they are disproved, a lot of them are treated as if they are correct."

That's how science works - it forms an understanding of the world by building testable, disproveable theories. This is the best way we have of understanding the universe, because it enables us to discover when we're wrong, and correct ourselves, and go on with a better understanding of the universe. This is a good thing, not a flaw. If we relied on dogma and "absolute fact", we wouldn't be able to recognise when we were wrong in our understanding of how the world works, and we'd never advance the state of our knowledge.

"I do believe in evolution as for the most part it is perfectly logical, just different phenotypes being more favoured under different conditions as well as gene mutation etc. Doesnt mean I believe we used to be apes no matter what genetic evidence there is."

Clearly you need to pay more attention in biology class, then. Evolutionary theory doesn't say we used to be apes, it says that apes and humans had a common ancestor.

"We have about 99% the same genome as a fruit fly, doesnt mean we used to be fruit flies does it?"

The similarity is a lot less than 99% - I can't find an exact figure right now, but even with great apes we share no more than about 98.5% (depending on how you measure it). Regardless, this is about as silly as pointing out that glucose and ethanol are made of the same atoms, and then acting surprised when you don't get drunk off a candybar.

im a bit confused as to why you are attacking my opinions in what I see to be an unnecesarry manner.

Did I say it was a bad thing that science gives us information that is not exactly proven without a bit of doubt at the time of teaching? No, I absolutely did not, nor do I believe that to be true. I merely wanted to stress the fact that a lot of what we read and hear, including information concerning evolution is not necessarily correct and that it is not only information that concerns evolution where this occurs as some people might believe.

Do you have a PhD in genetics? The lecturer who told me we have a VERY similar genome toa fruit fly does. He happens to be pretty good at making genomes, infact he was the first person to map a particular species genome. And while 99% might not have been the exact number (I said ABOUT 99%, ever heard of a hyperbole?) the number was very high, somewhere in the 90's. As someone with a bit of knowlege of genetics, the number is not surprising as there are only so many different bases that make up DNA.

Need to pay more attention to biology class? I major in human biology, I think I pay quite a lot of attention to "biology class," considering I spend more than 40hours a week focussing on nothing but biology. Some people believe that humans evolved from apes over millions of years. I am not one of them. I am entitled to that opinion. How dare you attack me for that.

I'm not attacking your opinions. You're welcome to hold any opinions you want. What I'm debating is what you present as factual justification for your opinions.

No, I don't have a PhD in genetics, but I don't need one to know that we don't share 99% of our genome with fruit flies. It took about 30 seconds of searching to reveal that our similarity to the great apes is no more than about 98.5%. And as I said, raising the high similarity as some sort of evidence against evolution is about as illuminating as comparing glucose to ethanol and being surprised they're made of the same atoms.

We share a large percentage of our genome with seemingly very different species because a large part of the genome deals with what's necessary to sustain life at a cellular level. As different as we appear to fruit flies, our cells are very similar, and have many of the same mechanisms, etc. It shouldn't be at all surprising that we share a lot of genetic code.

You also act like how similar we are genetically to another species is all that determines heredity. Clearly that's not the case, and geneticists have much more sophisticated tools for this. We can look at specific changes in specific genes between species, and extrapolate what our common ancestor must have looked like, and how far back it was. Such is the predictive power of evolution, in fact, that these predictions are generally corroborated by the fossil record!

"Some people believe that humans evolved from apes over millions of years. I am not one of them."

I'm glad to hear that. Perhaps some people do believe that, but as I pointed out earlier, that's _not_ a position that's supported by evolution. Evolution says we and apes have a common ancestor, not that we evolved from apes.

"Need to pay more attention to biology class? I major in human biology, I think I pay quite a lot of attention to 'biology class,' considering I spend more than 40hours a week focussing on nothing but biology."

My apologies if I offended you. Your use of superficial facts like genetic similarity to fruit flies without following through with the fact that mere degree of similarity is not enough to establish heredity indicates that either you haven't paid much attention to the subject or that you knew that it was an invalid argument and dishonestly used it anyway. I chose to assume the former.