"Theory" means EXPLANATION, not speculation
Greetings all,
Notice it's the Darwinian Theory of Evolution, not the Darwinian Law of Evolution.
It is all too common for people to confuse the two meanings of the word "theory".
In popular terms, "theory" means a guess, or speculation.
This meaning can also be used in scientific circles of course - such as "tectonic plate theory", which started as a speculative idea to explain some odd facts, but has now been fully confirmed.
Yet it has not graduated to the "law of tectonic plates". That is simply NOT how it works. Many people still repeat this false idea that a "hypothesis" becomes a "theory", then graduates to a "law". That is not true.
Of course, in Darwin's time, evolution was still highly speculative - Darwin formed his theory to explain some unusual facts he observed, but there was a great deal that was unknown at that time. In the 150 years or so since then it has been confirmed by every experiment, every test, and every observation ever done, by anyone, anywhere, every time - millions of individual pieces of evidence ALL support evolution. But it has never been contradicted by ONE single observation. For this reason, evolution is now considered certain. It is as "proven" as things ever are in science.
Now,
in scientific terms, there is another, different, meaning to the word "theory" - it means an EXPLANATION (and/or a model) of how it works, (and allows predictions to be made.)
Theories explain the facts we observe :
Gravity is a fact, we observe its effects.
Gravitational Theory describes how gravity works.
Electicity is a fact, we use it everyday.
Electromagnetic Theory explains the details of how it operates.
Germs are a fact.
Germ Theory explains how they cause disease.
Evolution is a fact, it has been observed many times.
the Evolutionary Theory explains how it works.
Of course - a theory can be wrong.
Consider these two theories :
* The Demonic Theory of disease
* The Germ Theory of disease
The church championed the Demonic Theory of disease for centuries - the idea that disease was explained by hidden "demons".
Of course, we all know the church was wrong.
Instead - science has shown that germs cause disease, not demons.
A good theory must match the facts, and must allow predictions to be made. Evolution is such a theory - it has made many predictions and all have been found correct.
The Theory of Evolution is NOT "speculation about evolution" - that is NOT what the phrase means at all.
Rather -
the Theory of Evolution is the EXPLANATION for how evolution works, it models the behaviour of the FACTS of evolution, and allows predictions to be made.
Just as Electromagnetic Theory is the explanation or model of how electricity works.
Would one say "electricity is just a theory" ?
Of course not.
And Gravitational Theory is the explanation or model of how gravity works.
Would one say "gravity is just a theory" ?
Of course not.
And Germ Theory is the explanation or model of how germs cause disease.
Would one say "gravity is just a theory" ?
Of course not.
Yet
some people say
"evolution is (just) a theory"
as if it means
"evolution is merely untested speculation" (false)
when it really only means
"evolution is an explanation, or model" (true)
Evolution is a FACT.
We observe evolution.
And,
the Theory of Evolution is the EXPLANATION, or model, for the observed facts of evolution.
The use of the word "theory" here does NOT mean it is unproven.
Any more than the term "Gravitational Theory" means gravity has not been proved.
Evolution is probably the single most solidly supported theory of all time.
Nothing in biology makes sense without evolution.
Saying
"evolution is just a theory"
makes as much sense as saying
"gravity is just a theory".
Iasion
