Evolution is a unifying theory with many gaps in the puzzle ("the missing link", maybe you've heard of it). Not so other theories.
"Evolution is a unifying theory with many gaps in the puzzle ("the missing link", maybe you've heard of it). Not so other theories."
Relativity, Big Bang, theory of flight, atomic theory, gravitation - all theories have gaps. If they didn't there wouldn't be anyone working on them.
Evolution is a very good explaination for the diversity of modern species and observed common descent in the fossil record. Despite gaps it is one of the best scientific theories in existance and has no competitors.
"The hoaxed Piltdown Man was a part of their "proof" in the past. "He" remained for decades."
And was exposed by scientists who accepted evolution. Furthermore Piltdown Man actually started to contradict the pattern of genuine hominid fossil found in subsequent years. There are now dozens of hominid fossil species that have been discovered since Piltdown man that overwhelmingly show that humans have evolved over time.
"Well, there are a lot of gaps in the evidence, and we're really not certain that the variety of species rose according to the classic theory of macro evolution, but it's the best thing we have going"
From current evidence common descent of species is considered beyond doubt. Macro-evolution is beyond doubt. The theoretical part of the theory of evolution is explaining the mechanisms for how this happened. For example it is not speculation that whales evolved from land animals, because not only are whales genetically similar to a certain group of mammals and share morphological similarities, but transitional fossils have been found. But it is currently speculation as to the precise genetic changes that occured for this to happen. So school books can use whale evolution as an example of evolution without having to resort to speculation of the genetic changes behind it.