User:Filll/evolutionastheoryandfactrewrite3

Evolution is commonly labeled as both theory and fact in science. In addition, one of the most common objections to evolution raised by creationists is that "evolution is just a theory", and therefore uncertain. Descriptions of evolution as a fact, a theory, or both, have not only been a focus of objections by creationists and explanations by evolution popularizers, but the basis of numerous laws, policies and court cases.

The argument that evolution is uncertain and not well-established because "evolution is just a theory" is actually based on a semantic misunderstanding, and does not have any substance. In science, a theory is not something uncertain, or a guess, but an explanation of scientific data.

However, the statement that "evolution is just a theory" is so common and this creationist argument so weak, that it has developed a certain notoriety. Some creationists even advise against its use.

Evolution is just a theory ?
Probably the most frequent complaint about evolution by creationists is captured in the statement that "evolution is just a theory". Several American laws and official school policies have included this claim. For example, "theory not fact" policies and laws were enacted in Tennessee, Alabama, Oklahoma, Ohio, Louisiana, and Georgia. The Georgia Cobb County School Board spent about 4 years trying to place stickers in school books stating that, "Evolution is "a theory, not a fact..." In the mid-1990s, the Tennessee legislature came close to passing a bill that would have made it possible to fire any teacher teaching that evolution was a fact and not a theory.

The Dover Area School District in Dover, Pennsylvania was successfully sued in 2005 because they required that ninth grade biology students be read a statement describing evolution as just a theory, not a fact.

US President Ronald Reagan said in a press conference in 1980 that evolution "is a theory. It is a scientific theory only..."

Governor Mike Huckabee stated "...Darwinism is not an established scientific fact. It is a theory of evolution, that’s why it’s called the theory of evolution."

Scientists respond
The complaint that "evolution is just a theory" is not new, and both scientists studying evolution and their fellow scientists from other fields have responded with a variety of attempted clarifications and explanations over the years:
 * Stephen Jay Gould: "Evolution is a theory. It is also a fact."
 * Neil Campbell: "Today, nearly all biologists acknowledge that evolution is a fact. The term theory is no longer appropriate..."
 * Ernst Mayr: "The basic theory of evolution has been confirmed so completely that most modern biologists consider evolution simply a fact...And evolutionary change is also simply a fact..."
 * Eugenie Scott: "evolution is a theory...Evolution is a FACT!!!"
 * Richard Lenski: "Evolution...is both a fact and a theory."
 * Carl Sagan: "Evolution is a fact, not a theory."
 * George Simpson: "Darwin...finally and definitely established evolution as a fact."
 * R. C. Lewontin: "...evolution is a fact, not theory"
 * Douglas Futuyama: "...the historical reality of evolution--is not a theory. It is a fact..."
 * H. J. Muller: "evolution is not a fact, or rather, that it is no more a fact than that you are hearing or reading these words."
 * Kenneth R. Miller: "evolution is as much a fact as anything we know in science."
 * Helena Curtis and N. Sue Barnes: "Since Darwin's time, massive additional evidence has accumulated supporting the fact of evolution..."

Fact, theory and a new journal
This article is likely to interest you, found via the links shown at Talk:evolution.... dave souza, talk 00:25, 29 December 2007 (UTC)