"Science is DICTATED BY FACTS, it is not a democracy, we do not VOTE on what science tells us."
Here's some scientific facts for you:
1) The Earth is the center of the Universe. Per the scientist Aristotle it is a fact.
2) Illness is caused by bad air. 'Mal aria' as the scientists once labeled it in Latin.
3) "Radiation is perfectly harmless and possibly therapeutic." Mme. Marie Curie, who is now known to have died from radiation exposure.
4) Illness can be cured by bleeding the bad humours from people - a scientific fact that killed George Washington.
5) Thalidomide is a safe drug for pregnant women to use to prevent miscarriage and nausea.
6) Nuclear power is clean and safe.
7) AIDS is not a communicable disease.
8) Cancer is a communicable disease.
9) The human body cannot long endure the stress of travelling at velocities in excess of sixty miles per hour.
10) Powered flight is impossible.
11) No one will ever fly faster than the speed of sound (hence 'sound barrier').
12) Polio cannot be cured or prevented, only treated.
13) Brontosaurus had a tiny head. (The first museum curator to assemble one used a handy small skull from another critter - creating a 'fact' that took 100 years to dispel.)
14) Neanderthal man walked hunched over. (The one example had arthritis).
15) Silicon chip CPU's cannot exceed 133Mhz due to thermodynamic limitations.
16) Global warming is caused by SUV's.
17) Global cooling is caused by SUV's.
18) A doctor not washing his hands before a surgery has NOTHING to do with post-operative infections! (Common knowledge prior to the 1880's).
19) Atoms are immutable.
20) Syphillis started in the Americas and was transmitted to Europe by Christopher Columbus. (Recent findings show syphillis existed in Europe as early as the 1200's).
21) Cold air will make you sick. (Catch a 'cold' lately?)
I'm really having fun here. Want me to go on? :P
My definition of a "scientific fact" is when whatever the pointy-headed academes decide is a fact is accepted as such by one of your ignorant people in Arkansas. Until then, it is not so substantially true as to be past challenge or reconsideration.
In my years I've oft found "scientific facts" to actually be "scientific facts...for now."
Like I said, if it is so substantially true that Bill Clinton's cousins accept it, too, then I'll go with calling it a "fact". If they don't accept it then you and your scientific pals need to go back and prove your case.
That does not mean you're wrong, it just means you need to present your case a bit better.
Evolution hasn't really convinced anyone. I usually have no problem arguing evolution-true-believers out of some point or another in my first five minutes of debate.
I won't say evolution isn't possibly true. Maybe it is. BUt those people on the pro side of the argument can't even agree on it, so why should I accept it as a body of facts when they can't agree on what those facts are?
What does pointing out the evolution of science prove??? If you really have such a problem, with science, then I suggest you stop using your car, as well as your heating and plumbing... Oh wait! You only have problems with TODAY's science, the stuff that hasn't been thoroughly tested yet.
All the examples you gave, at least the ones that were honest, are silly. WHo proved them ALL wrong? Other scientists... And what were they replaced with? Other scientific theories!
For instance #1, heliocentrism. First of all, aristotle was not a scientist, he was a philosopher. Real scietists did not appear until the enlightenment. Heliocentrism is a theory that will never change, not without shaking our knowledge of tghe natural world like never before. It was a risky venture 800 years ago, but not today.
"Evolution hasn't really convinced anyone."
Other than the scientific community...
If evolution was ever proven wrong, which is possible, though as unlikely as relativity being proven wrong, it would throw half the life sciences current conclusions into question. And if it ever were proven wrong, it would be found out by a scientist, or replaced by a better scientific theory. There would never, ever be any input from the church in this process.