Quote:
Originally Posted by shakermaker
Err... yeah, a theory with a stupendous amount of hard evidence from millions of years! Hardly 'just a theory' as you infer it to be.
|
Agreed ... and what a lot of folks forget is that when a scientist uses the word "theory", he means something different from what the lay person understands. For example, we still talk of "atomic theory" and "Avogadro's hypothesis," when they are proven beyond much doubt. To a scientist, "theory" does not mean "educated guess", or "opinion" or "belief"; it means something that has been established and can be challenged by other scientists. Unfortunately for the understanding of most lay people, they still call it a theory even when it assumes the status of "fact."