Evolution?! Isn’t it just a theory?
OK, let’s put this argument to rest once and for all “Evolution?! It’s just a theory it has never been proven” (really getting sick of it) To do so, some science education is required, so repeat after me:
1- Scientific fact: NO SUCH THING. a fact is a fact. It is a phenomenon observed the same way by 100% of people. Apples fall on heads; life is diverse, the sun and the moon come up and down. You will never find someone saying he/she saw an apple flying upwards by itself. People that contradict facts are either liars or insane.
2- Scientific law: an explanation of HOW a phenomenon behaves the way it does, not WHAT is it, or WHY it behaves that way? Laws allow us to predict how a phenomenon will exactly behave in the future, usually expressed in terms of mathematical equations. Newton described gravity through the laws of motion, therefor we can explain the motion of planets (Kepler) and predict their locations. Interestingly the laws of motion failed to predict the behavior of Mercury, because Newton had no idea what gravity is.
3- Hypothesis: Is a first guess, a hunch, a gut feeling at explaining why a phenomenon behaves a certain way. Like, hmmm…pyramids! they must have been built by aliens, gravity is an invisible force emitting from objects, Aliens engineered humans (Boy aliens were busy doing cool stuff), a supernatural being engineered all living things specifically to thrive in their environments, or Darwin’s guess that all living things gradually change to better take advantage of their environments and the ones that don’t change die off, that’s why we only see specialized life forms.
4- Theory: is the best existing explanation with the current available evidence, that attempts to answer what, why and how a phenomenon is and behaves. It starts with a hypothesis, which is tested and experimented upon, peer reviewed, replicated and repeated over and over and over by other scientists. If all results are the same and converge to a one and only one logical point, then it becomes a theory. For example, theory of general relativity which explains what gravity is; the warping of spacetime continuum by mass (Simple, right?). Because of it, scientists finally managed to explain the behavior of Mercury using Newton’s laws of motion.
Therefore, for good reason it’s called the theory of evolution, not law, not fact, and not hypothesis of evolution, but the theory of evolution, the unguided gradual mutation of DNA, which explains what evolution is, why and how it happens. It is a theory because…. you guessed it (I hope you did after wasting time up there explaining what a theory is) it is supported by overwhelming body of evidence produced by different scientific disciplines; biology, archaeology, anthropology, paleontology, paleoanthropology and even more ologies. All evidence from those disciplines have been tested, compared and crossed checked, and they all point to one truth; species must have evolved overtime from much simpler organisms. NOT DEBATABLE.
And remember, TRUTH IS NOT A DEMOCRACY.
RIP “evolution is just a theory”
