Evolution as Fact and Theory

Appropriate that today we offer a guest blogger returned from the great beyond.

There were few scientists as capable as Stephen Gould at conveying subtle, complicated ideas in clear prose accessible to the lay reader. In 1981, he took on the nascent "creationist" cabal, then boosted by the imbecile Reagan. Before shredding their pseudo science, he demolished their strawman -- that evolution is "only" a theory:

In the American vernacular, "theory" often means "imperfect fact"—part of a hierarchy of confidence running downhill from fact to theory to hypothesis to guess. Thus creationists can (and do) argue: evolution is "only" a theory, and intense debate now rages about many aspects of the theory. If evolution is less than a fact, and scientists can't even make up their minds about the theory, then what confidence can we have in it? Indeed, President Reagan echoed this argument before an evangelical group in Dallas when he said (in what I devoutly hope was campaign rhetoric): "Well, it is a theory. It is a scientific theory only, and it has in recent years been challenged in the world of science—that is, not believed in the scientific community to be as infallible as it once was."

Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts do not go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's, but apples did not suspend themselves in mid-air, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from apelike ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other, yet to be discovered.

Moreover, "fact" does not mean "absolute certainty." The final proofs of logic and mathematics flow deductively from stated premises and achieve certainty only because they are not about the empirical world. Evolutionists make no claim for perpetual truth, though creationists often do (and then attack us for a style of argument that they themselves favor). In science, "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent." I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.

Evolutionists have been clear about this distinction between fact and theory from the very beginning, if only because we have always acknowledged how far we are from completely understanding the mechanisms (theory) by which evolution (fact) occurred. Darwin continually emphasized the difference between his two great and separate accomplishments: establishing the fact of evolution, and proposing a theory—natural selection—to explain the mechanism of evolution. He wrote in The Descent of Man: "I had two distinct objects in view; firstly, to show that species had not been separately created, and secondly, that natural selection had been the chief agent of change. . . . Hence if I have erred in . . . having exaggerated its [natural selection's] power . . . I have at least, as I hope, done good service in aiding to overthrow the dogma of separate creations."

-- Stephen Jay Gould, Evolution as Fact and Theory (1981)

(A tip 'o the hoagie to Talk Origins Archive)

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Sour Grapes, Anyone?

The wingnutz are at it again, and again, and again.

The wingnutz are wetting themselves over a Discovery Institute "discovery" that last December's federal court decision in the Intelligent Design case relied heavily on the plaintiff's proposed "Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law".

Unfortunately, the Discovery Institute and its wingnut supporters either don't know how things work in Court, or think that no one else does. In other words, they are ignorant or dishonest.

Either way, they got it wrong.

You see, kids, that is what is supposed to happen.

This was a case tried without a jury -- what the grown-ups call a "bench trial". In bench trials, particularly in Federal Court, it is not only routine for the advocates to submit proposed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law to the court to use in it's decision -- it is required.

Thus, for example, the Local Rules for the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania (where Intelligent Design had, and lost, it's day in Court), provide as follows:

LR 48.2 Civil Trials, Trial Without A Jury.
In a civil action tried without a jury, counsel shall file requests for findings of fact and conclusions of law with the pretrial memorandum. Additional requests may be made during the trial as to matters that could not have been reasonably anticipated before trial.

Once the Court hears all of the evidence, the judge picks and chooses from the various proposed findings those which the court has decided most fairly represent the credible evidence presented, and then works them into the written decision and opinion. That's just, and merely, what the court did here.

Maybe the Discovery Institute wackjobs are still smarting over the Court's smackdown of their brief. You see, the judge threw out the Discovery Institute friend of the court brief, like the garbage it was, saying that it was "clearly inappropriate", "improper", a "back-door" attempt to submit inadmissible material, "fundamentally unfair", and a violation of all of the applicable rules of court and evidence.

Sore losers. Emphasis on the losers.

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