Quote by DarkRoseofHell
Quote: Speaking scientifically, evolution is NOT fact. Which is why it is called Evolutionary THEORY. Don't think this means I don't hold evolution to be true or the most likely reasoning for change in species and its other claims, however, science declares very, very, VERY little to be FACT. Science only can say that one hypothosis is more likely than other hypothoses given the data so far. A theory is a strong hypothosis, which is backed up by much data and is generally held to likely be true based on the evidence.
That sounds umm... weird... If science declares little fact, so... me chucking a bottle and it flying away isn't true? Me punching the wall and making a dent isn't true? We typing on our computers or laptops and make sensible letters because we can see isn't true? I mean come on... if it's that little... then what the heck are we doing alive?
First, you're interchanging two words that are not interchangable: true and fact. These two words have different meanings, and thus, if i say it declares little fact, it has little to do with whether chucking a bottle is true.
Anyway, you're right, I may have worded that wrong or something. What we usually think of with scientific information which is applicable, such as evolution, is not scientific fact. The law of gravity isn't actually fact either, but its got a stronger basis than, say, a theory, and thus is a law, and is very very very likely true.
Now, science may say that, once you have dropped a book and it falls to the ground, the book moved from one point where you're hand was to another point where the ground is. This may be concidered a fact, and would be classified under data. That it fell is a bit of a conclusion, that gravity is the reason is as well, and that more would and do is closer to a matter of truth, which science doesn't usually declare so concreatly, but instead may say "based on the evidence, it seems the most likely explination and this happened do to this, and that it will occure again..."
However, it allows that at some future time, more data might declare that conclusion false, and also there is some doubt, however small, that the thing happened as recorded anyway. After all, I said the BOOK moved in my example, but later analysis MIGHT yield the conclusion that the universe around the book moved and it simply appeared to me that the book moved when in fact the book stayed where it was. This, right now, seems the less likely conclusion, which is why we, for now, go with the other.
Whether the book factually exists generally isn't a matter science declares one way or the other either, but it does appear to, and we don't have evidence to the contrary at the moment, so the best conclusion now is that it does and that it has acted as we think it did, assuming we are properly seeing it happen, which there is no evidence to the contrary again.
