Evolution is “just” a theory after all

To all creationists: do you want to see something funny? The next time you're having a discussion with an evolutionist, tell him “evolution is just a theory” and watch what happens. What usually happens is a long groan of exasperation, followed by a snort of derision, topped off by lots of eye rolling and head shaking. It's rather hilarious.

When he gets around to actually suggesting a rebuttal, you'll probably hear one of the following three things:

1) A scientific definition of the word, “theory,” and how it means a well-tested and well-substantiated explanation of some phenomenon or 2) a short quip saying, “Did you know gravity is just a theory?” or 3) both of these things. I'm not kidding. They always says the same things. It's like they all have the same playbook and that's the only answers they've learned. It's too bad because none of these responses really rebut the creationist's point.

When a creationist calls evolution, “just a theory,” he usually means evolution is not a “fact” or a “law.” He's using theory in the ordinary sense. However, evolutionists claim there is a more technical meaning of the word “theory” within the scientific community. According to Scientific American:

Many people learned in elementary school that a theory falls in the middle of a hierarchy of certainty--above a mere hypothesis but below a law. Scientists do not use the terms that way, however. According to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), a scientific theory is "a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses." No amount of validation changes a theory into a law, which is a descriptive generalization about nature. So when scientists talk about the theory of evolution--or the atomic theory or the theory of relativity, for that matter--they are not expressing reservations about its truth.

Now, it's typical for people in different lines of work to have industry specific terms or even specialized meanings for common words. It's called “jargon.” The word, “load,” for example, might mean something different to a truck driver than an engineer. Scientists claim to have a special meaning for the term, “theory.” I get it. But when you're communicating with the public, you need to use terms in the way the public understands them. I believe the hyper-sensitivity over the word is really just a red herring evolutionists use to try to derail the conversation. Let me explain.

If the word, theory, is supposed to mean a “well-substantiated explanation” of some phenomenon, why do evolutionists habitually use the word “theory” when talking about abiogenesis? We have never observed life rising from non-living matter in nature; neither have we been able to artificially create life from non-living chemicals. There is no “well-substantiated explanation” of how it happened so there can be no theory of abiogenesis. All they have are guesses – wild guesses – about how it might have happened but none of the guesses have actually produced a living thing. Still, they call them “theories” about the origin of life. Why do they do that? It could be that they are trying to minimize the embarrassment of having no natural explanation for the origin of life by assigning to their guesses the “scientific” term, theory. It could be that they're really not as concerned about the technical definition as they pretend to be.

The other thing, though, is that, even according to the scientific definition, a “theory” is still just an explanation of something. It may be “well-tested.” It may seem to explain the thing well. But at the end of the day, the scientific meaning of the word isn't terribly different than how the non-scientist means it. They both mean explanations.

Here's an analogy I've used before: I can open a carton of eggs and see there are a dozen. That's an objective fact. But why are there a dozen eggs? In other words, why do they sell eggs in dozens rather than, say, in tens? If I had to inventory eggs, it's easier to count by tens than by twelves. If I had to guess, I would say it's because there are more ways to divide dozens than tens. If a farmer ships eggs to multiple families or a family is feeding several members, how many ways the eggs can be divided evenly is important because it reduces left overs. This could be my hypothesis and I could test it by questioning farmers or doing historical research into the practice. Maybe my hypothesis will be confirmed or maybe not. Regardless, why there are a dozen eggs will never be an objective fact in the same sense as there are a dozen eggs. Do you see? No matter how confident we may be with the theory, it will never be held in the same regard as the fact.  So when a creationist says, "evolution is just a theory," he's objecting to evolution as a sufficient explanation of modern biodiversity.  There's no need to quibble over the technical meaning of the word.

Now, on to the next point. When evolutionists say evolution is a theory like gravity is a theory, they're playing another word game. Here, they're trying to conflate the phenomenon called gravity and the theory of gravity. We know that gravity exists. We're also very successful in describing how it behaves. We can use it to make predictions – like how much would astronauts “weigh” on the moon? In these way, gravity is an observed fact. What we're not sure about is what causes gravity.

Newton believed gravity is a force, something like magnetism. Einstein didn't believe gravity was a force but suggested that mass actually bends spacetime causing objects moving along the curved space to intersect with each other. Whatever the truth is, the debate isn't over if there is gravity but rather what is gravity.

The theory of evolution is no where near on par with the theory of gravity. As I've already said, we're very successful in describing how gravity behaves. We're a little more fuzzy on the details of evolution. In short, scientists still aren't sure when, where, or how things evolved. They're constantly rearranging animals on the so-called, “tree of life.” Nearly every day, a new discovery is made that overturns things they were once “sure” about. Evolution also makes NO predictions (I'm sure I'll be writing about this sometime). We certainly can't predict where evolution is leading.

So, to all my friends who believe evolution: please stop saying evolution is like gravity! And please stop lecturing us about the technical definition of the word theory. At the end of the day, your theory still just your attempt to explain the facts and it's still a very poor explanation.