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To: GourmetDan
On this point, I think it is obvious that theories can and must change to fit the facts, not the other way around. This makes the theory subservient to the facts.

Of course, evolution turns this on its head and that may be why you prefer theories over facts.

I don't believe that you are wallowing in hundreds of millions of facts with no organizing structure whatsoever.

Please reread the quote I posted.

Theories can, and indeed must, change to fit the facts, yes. That does not make theories subservient to facts.

Facts are meaningless without theories to organize them, and to give them meaning. What can you tell me from a few hundred million facts concerning evolution? Nothing. You have to organize those facts, evaluate them, one against the other, and arrange them in ways (including chronologically) which give them meaning. That process, after a lot of hard work and testing, can result in a theory.

What you are really trying to say is that your theory, or way of organizing these facts, is different from mine. It also appears from your post that your way of organizing facts is different from the way the vast majority of scientists organize them.

95 posted on 12/19/2006 7:38:10 PM PST by Coyoteman (Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.)
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To: Coyoteman
"Facts are meaningless without theories to organize them, and to give them meaning."

I think you are confusing 'theory' and 'law'.

The observable facts of gravity are organized into the 'Laws of Gravity'.

The 'Theory of Gravity' is that which predicts unobserved particles, like gravitons.

115 posted on 12/20/2006 6:07:23 AM PST by GourmetDan
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