Re: Apologetic Islamic take on Evolution … Or unkind dismissal?
I think part of your interpretive process is creating definitions not followed by most scientists.
The word fact is surely a linguistic term just as any other word, however when talking about its use in a field such as science we can generally use a specific definition of the world as outlined by scientists themselves.
Again, I would behoove you to use the actual definitions used by scientists and not ones created by you.
In science a theory or hypothesis never becomes law. We can see this clearly when we look at Newtons Law of universal gravitation. When Newton discovered these laws, he had trouble attributing a hypothesis that would explain why this law existed. It wasn’t until Einstein’s general theory of relativity that explained what caused gravity.
I think I understand your objection and this is my response. Let me first try to explain the ‘act’ of gravity in a similar way before I turn to evolution.
The ‘act’ of gravity could be simply stated as an object falling towards the earth. Imagine when man first pondered on such a question as to what caused the object to fall towards the earth. They could have came up with many solutions but the correct one would be that bodies of mass gravitate towards each other and therefore the idea of gravity was born. Now when discussing the concept of the cause of objects falling towards the earth, one generally uses the word gravity in these dialougues.
The act of evolution is simply that many species of animals exist. Imagine when man first pondered on such a question as to what causes species and what is their origin. They could have come up with many solutions but the correct one according to scientists is that species arise due to changes in inherited traits over generations (The explanation provided in the aptly titled Origin of Species). Now when discussing the cause and origins of species one generally uses the word evolution.