HoodaThunk?

As I wander around my normal haunts throughout the ‘sphere, I’ve been taking note of the various new year’s messages and the like. One of my usual stops is Little Green Footballs and today’s foray online naturally included it. I think the world of the work done by LGF and their Lizardoid Legions of devoted followers. However…

While we apparently agree on matters of politics, LGF and HoodaThunk?, one of the things I’ve noted in the past few months that, frankly, irritates me is the rather aggressive disdain they have for the belief several of us have that there’s a Divine Creator. Today’s entry over there, titled, “Evolving Into 2009“, quotes Stephen Jay Gould in basically trashing on creationists again. What’s ticked me off about this is in the very first couple of sentences:

Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact.

Garbage. Theories are theories, folks, and facts are facts. Regular paper ignites and burns at a temperature of 451° F. That’s not a theory, it’s a fact. There’s no arguing it or any even remotely reasonable alternative to the assertion that bringing a piece of paper to that temperature will result in burning paper. The fire results from the temperature increase, not gremlins or phases of the moon. We can get that result reliably in test and test and it is the observation of that reliability that makes it a fact that paper burns that the designated temperature and not a theory that it will.

Evolution is a theory. For all of the science and advances and observations we’ve made (and there’s been considerable progress, mind you) we still have not observed a single confirmed instance where a complex lifeform exhibited behavior that qualifies as “evolving.” We are making educated assumptions about ancient lifeforms and their relationships to those in existance today and that’s fine. But it’s not proof and making multiple assumptions that all presume the same thing isn’t “confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent,” as the LGF quote says. (And what is “provisional assent” anyway? We’re assuming a fact we don’t have evidence to back up until we find more evidence? Sounds more like religious faith to me.)

All of which continues the false adversarial relationship going on here. Evolution is a mechanism. Creationism is a faith in the driving force behind that mechanism. They aren’t mutually exclusive and they aren’t even at odds. I just wish some people could be a little less insulting about my beliefs when talking about their beliefs.