The BS-o-meter just ran off the charts here! C'mon, now. Be honest. You know fully well that evolution is not taught as theory in our schools. You know that. It is taught as fact. Therefore, it can not be that important to you, for if it were, you'd make sure that the theory would be taught as theory. But such is not the case.
. . .like other genuinely scientific theories, it is thereby vulnerable to many possible falsifications, but has withstood these tests.
The same can be said for the Bible. What's your point? In fact, the Bible has worn out many hammers. It is not changing, yet your theory changes rapidly. Hmmm. . .
Finally, we evolutionists tend to find it is creationists who have faulty, simplistic, incoherent or (quite often) pathological misunderstandings of the relationship between theories and facts.
Nice backhanded slap, dude. Again (for the umpteenth time on this thread alone which no one seems to even want to acknowledge), faith is faith. You must believe, otherwise it falls apart. But you are telling a bald-face lie (not surprising given your belief in evolution) when you say that we have the problem with the terms "theories" and "facts." Not one scientist can say unequivocally that evolution is absolutely true. No matter how many fossil records you have, the "truth" of evolution can't be claimed. According to your so-called facts, evolution can be suggested. But suggestion and absolute proof are not close to each other. They don't compliment each other, either. And since it can not be claimed empirically, it is a theory.
I never knew that so many on the right of the political spectrum were evolutionists. This is scary. You guys attack people of faith just as much as those on the looney left do. So, in my mind, you both are the exact same.
Nice company. Keep them, please.
One last thing before I go. Why did the entire process of evolution theory begin with the premise that God does not exist? In other words, who ya foolin'? The entire discipline began with the answer it sought, and fashioned its evidence to "prove" that claim.
You are incorrect. It began with observations of the natural world and desire to explain those observations according to testable and verifiable theories.
It is true that science does not consider the supernatural as an explanation - but that is because the supernatural cannot be tested. If I say Godidit, I cannot test the hypothesis. If I say "GnomesDidIt", I cannot test the hypothesis. If I say "It is all a figment of my imagination, I cannot test the hypothesis." None of these hypotheses help me, none make predictions, none are falsifiable or verifiable. All three have the same explanatory power: zero. All three are a waste of the scientist's time. (Which is not to say that religious ideas are useless, just that they are not scientific. Many people derive great comfort from gnomes.)
Perhaps your problem is with science itself. But then, that would also require rejection of physics, chemistry, and geology as well as evolution. I doubt you are that dedicated to ignorance.
The difference between me and you is that I have no particular axe to grind. I would like to see science curricula do a better job in general of conveying an accurate understanding of the nature of scientific theory, and the role of scientific facts in testing theories. Unlike you I don't obsess about how some particular theory is taught.
I want the theory of evolution and the theory of photosynthesis, and every other theory to be taught non-dogmatically. In fact, while I would agree that the distinction between theory and fact is seldom well drawn in science education (you don't seem to have grasped it yourself) evolution is more likely than any other "theory" to be so identified!
Textbooks frequently lay out the evidence for evolution, which at least implicitly suggests a fact/theory relationship, but they never do so for the theory of photosynthesis, and rarely do so, and never to the same depth or extent, for any other theory. We are at least occasionally treated to differing scientific interpretations of evolutionary theory, but this is seldom done for other theories. (I happen to know, at least when I was in school, that there were significant scientific controversies about the process of photosynthesis, but I was never informed of them. I was taught the theory of photosynthesis "as fact". The word "theory" was never used at all.) We are never, ever told by a textbook that "some scientists believe" such and so about photosynthesis, but this used to be a common formulation in discussing evolution.
In short I doubt that you could show me a single biology textbook where, on a truly dispassionate analysis, evolution was not the LEAST dogmatically taught theory, yet it is all you are on about. I happen to believe that education reform, including improvement of texts and curricula, is important, but I have zero sympathy for special pleaders, whatever it is they are pushing for or against. To me you are like the folks who are always whining, for instance, about history textbooks lacking sufficient racial or gender diversity, but evince no concern whatsoever about the general quality of history education. You are the same way. You don't care one bit that theories as such are clearly distinguished from facts. For you this complaint is only a device for attacking those particular theories that you don't like or don't agree with.
Nice company. Keep them, please.
Rdb3, there are two camps in the conservative movement: One camp (mine) believes in individual rights & responsibilities because of the facts of reality we see around us in the mundane, natural world, such as Man's nature as thinking beings & what kind of society is required for us to acheive our highest aspirations. (Our "eudaimonia", as Aristotle would put it.)
The other camp (yours, apparently) believes that things like objective morality & rights cannot be inferred, even in principle, from the real world. So you (in our opinion) construct a mythical, supernatural, all-powerful Authority Figure who acts like a deus-ex-machina in a Greek play: He solves the intractable dispute by stepping in & arbitrarily laying down a set of laws we must follow or else. This provides an objective standard for us to follow that "reality" itself does not provide.
Your side cannot understand how we can claim any possibility of objectivity in our moral codes, and therefore we must collapse into subjectivism & eventually nihilism. But our side sees your side as the true nihilists: As nihilistic as the most wanton libertine, since you deny the possibility of objective morality altogether! Except you see the world's essential meaninglessness & recoil from it, while the libertine accepts it & tries to grab whatever immediate gratification he can.
In reality, "meaning" is a, um, meaningful concept only in the context of a person who can think about such things. That person is us. (We know we exist, & we know we can think.) This is just as true whether we came to exist because of purely natural processes or some lonely god's science project. And our requirements as human beings for a fulfilled life are just as real. Unfortunately the best kind of societies & moral systems that fulfill these requirements are not self-evident - we had to learn those thru historical trial & error, and presumably we're still learning & refining. But objective Truth is still here.
In practice, most of the time we agree on specific issues. But in our opinion your side carries along this unnecessary baggage of your mythical Authority Figure, with his Big Book of Regulations, which was really written by sheepherders, & later refined & interpreted by church/state bureaucrats, all over 1500 years ago. (Do you really think it was objectively more moral for ancient Jews to never wear clothes made from mixed fibers? :-)