For those of y'all who reject evolution, i suspect that often you're not very familiar with it. But i could be wrong. So my question is: [Spirituality & Religion]

@Johnblackthorn

The purpose of this thread is not antagonistic.
I don't want to make this a combative conversation.
It's my [i]genuine [/i]experience that people who reject evolution tend to have a limited grasp on what the theory entails or even what is meant by "theory" in a scientific context.

I understand that there are things a believer must accept on faith.
Eg> That Jesus was indeed divine or that a god created the universe.
But there are things which we can observe and quantify which do not require faith to accept, they require faith to deny.

But that's all beside the point because right here and right now i'm only asking people who reject evolution to share with me their understanding of it.

Are you one of those people? Would you like to be the first to share?

@Johnblackthorn [quote]the facts as presented[/quote]

the facts as [i]demonstrated[/i]

@Johnblackthorn [quote]The followers of science simply accept the facts as presented and even when the facts turn out to be wrong.[/quote]
Facts by definition, cannot be wrong. When a Theory is found to be wrong, it's amended or replaced by one that better explains the known facts.

I think you've unintentionally vindicated @Pikachu's post. As he says, some people who reject evolution don't actually know what the theory says, or even what the term "theory" means. That lack of understanding extends to other areas too.

@Sharon facts have turned out to be wrong, facts that were established many years ago and taught in schools and colleges, sometimes these facts are used as reasons for allowing something or not allowing something in law and occasionally within the realm of engineering, the trouble is the word fact is often used by professionals when guess not even theory would be a better word.
But yes I should have phrased it more accurately to suit a certain demographic.

Nothing in the op presents fact is all little more than guessing and building theories that lead to nothing on that guesswork.

@newjaninev2 presented is the correct term in this case, there is no demonstration.

@Johnblackthorn [quote]building theories that lead to nothing on that guesswork.[/quote]
I'm not sure what you mean by that. Scientific theories explain the observations and the results of experiments.

@Johnblackthorn A fact must be demonstrable (at the least). Questions as to its robustness are a matter for further exploration.

You have used the word theory as if it somehow referred to conjecture. In science, that is very far from being the case. In fact, a Theory is the pinnacle of scientific effort. They are built on [i]evidence,[/i] not guesswork

@Sharon we're talking about evolution a theory based on guesswork based on observation it can never lead to anything remotely scientific or factual because not one element of the theory can be reproduced.

@newjaninev2 we're not talking about science and provable scientific evidence, we're talking about an unproven series of guesses based on things we found in the dirt, there are no facts, when I mentioned facts I referred to tham as presented, not proven or demonstrated but still presented in the past as facts that were proven later to by nothing more than bad guesswork.
It does not matter how hard you try or how pedantic you get about how words get used evolution will never be provable to a scientific level, it will always be guesswork and nothing more.

@Johnblackthorn [quote] we're talking about evolution a theory based on guesswork [/quote]
I could be wrong but I get the distinct impression you don't know what The Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection" actually says. It would help if you explained what you believe the theory say, as requested in @Pikachu's opening post. We do know than many of the things predicted by the theory have since been independently verified.

@Sharon so you do accept that it's a theory?
And that is exactly my point it is now and never will be nothing more than a theory, how difficult is this for you to understand?
The very point I made in the first place was that it's not a fact, nothing more than a theory.

Evolution, life starts out as single cells and over the course of millions of years each form becomes more complex and adaptable so far we've got as far as people that understand life and can show respect without judgement and those that cannot, the next step possibly involves better disease resistance, but that's just a guess it might prove to be fact, unlike the evolution theory.

@Johnblackthorn [quote]And that is exactly my point it is now and never will be nothing more than a theory, [/quote]
You're right, it is and always will be a theory but it's clear you don't uderstand what the word means in science.

Why won't you do as @Pikachu asked and tell us what your understanding of The Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection is?

[quote]Evolution, life starts out as single cells[/quote]
Wow, you're really jumping ahead. Life started well before cells evolved.

@Johnblackthorn [quote]nothing more than a theory[/quote]

Sharon has suggested that you do not well understand the nature of a scientific Theory, and your post seems to confirm her observation, so perhaps this will help.

Science starts with observation. We look at the world, and we notice things. Many of these things seem to be related, and so we try to come up with an explanation as to how they’re related. This explanation is called a Theory… we can think of these as ‘Big T’ Theories, because t[i]hey are based on demonstrable evidence and they have wide explanatory power.[/i] Scientists then test the Theory in order to prove that it is [b]wrong[/b]. This is an important point, and it seems to constantly confuse non-scientists. Science doesn’t try to prove that a Theory is correct. Science tries to prove that the Theory is wrong, and the Theory is accepted only so long as we are unable to show that it is wrong.


Contrast this with our everyday ‘theories’ (my neighbour is probably cheating on her taxes… my friend is having an affair), which are simply vague hunches or convenient fictions - we can think of those as small-t theories. Usually we go looking for evidence to support these ‘theories’, and it is common for us to ignore evidence that contradicts them. It seems to me that it's these vague hunches or convenient fictions that people have in mind when they say that evolution is ‘just a theory’.


Some people claim that the Theory of Evolution is not a real theory because ‘it cannot be falsified’. This is a nonsense. So, what would falsify the Theory of Evolution? Well, if we opened up a stratum of the Earth’s crust that was laid down, say, 100 million years ago and found there the fossilised remains of a modern-day giraffe, then the Theory of Evolution would have a fatal problem. The same would apply if we found fossils out of place in the Earth’s strata. Every single fossil puts the Theory of Evolution at risk, and yet, despite the hundreds of millions of fossils on the record, the Theory still stands. We never see a ‘modern’ rabbit (as an example) suddenly appearing in fossils formed, say, 60 million years ago. The Theory of Evolution is drawn from the evidence… and the evidence we continue to gather consistently fails to falsify it... but we continue to look.

@Johnblackthorn

[quote]evolution will never be provable to a scientific level, it will always be guesswork and nothing more ... it is now and never will be nothing more than a theory
[/quote]

...not for nothing my dude...but you appear to be exactly the sort of person this thread was made for.

I know you came into this thread already swinging but take a breath and consider answering the original question and maybe we can go on from there.

@Johnblackthorn Is there anything in my explanation of the nature of a scientific Theory that is unclear to you?