[Stone Mountain]

THe distinction needs to be made between "proof" and "evidence." There is a lot of evidence in favor of the theory of gravity. However, it is not "provable" in the way that a mathematical theorem is. The "American Flag of the Moon" isn't proof of the theory of gravity, just evidence in favor of it.

[donh]

THe distinction needs to be made between "proof" and "evidence." There is a lot of evidence in favor of the theory of gravity. However, it is not "provable" in the way that a mathematical theorem is. The "American Flag of the Moon" isn't proof of the theory of gravity, just evidence in favor of it.

We just finished beating this question to death on another ev thread last week. "Fact" is a civilian word, and so is "proof" as gore3000 wants to use it. Let's just concentrate on "facts" for the moment. So the word takes on any number of meanings in civilian context. Most impartantly, fact(1) means theories that are so reliable they have passed into incontravertablity; fact(2) means specific tangible information we have gathered in support of our theories.

Confusing these two definitions of fact is, by my subjective estimate, about 1/2 of the entire creationist argument on the subject of historical evolutionary evidence.

[donh]

There is a lot of evidence in favor of the theory of gravity.

Ah, but on the other hand, the law of gravity has failed many critical tests. It failed the perihelion of Mercury test, so the new theory of punctuated equi...er, Einsteinian gravity had to be invented to cover the embarassment of physicists everywhere, with their naked plot to dis-enthrone God so plainly revealed.

And, presently, the law of gravity fails to account for the outer orbits of stars around their galaxies. Clearly, this threadbare theory only persists due to the sinister machinations of the liberal establishment.