(May 10, 2013 at 8:09 am)John V Wrote: Is this proven beyond a reasonable doubt? If not, why call it a theory? Creationists get crap for saying evolution is only a theory, yet evolutionists use it in the same sense all the time. Go figure.
I used "theory" in the non-scientific sense. A scientific theory is essentially fact that can't be definitely verified. Scientists accept evolution as fact, but it can't be definitely verified because we don't have a time machine. It is therefore a theory.
The RNA world idea is a hypothesis; an idea that came about through observation. Laymen like myself use "theory" and "hypothesis" interchangeably because we don't really care to point out the difference.
Perhaps we shouldn't :/.
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