TO ALL THEISTS: EVOLUTIONARY THEORY IN A NUTSHELL YOU CAN UNDERSTAND.

[Cyberman]

And don't forget the Big Bang, the ridiculous religion that believes everything came from nothing all by itself. Stupid Evilushonistists... don't you know that "from nothing, nothing comes"?

Why can't you believe that everything came from nothing, just like it says in Genesis...

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(10 minutes later) I've just had a cup of tea and a nice sit down; I'm feeling much better now.

[Blanca]

Theories ARE facts. They are accepted as facts, they have evidence and information gathered via empirical studies and through a lot of research to show that it is fact.

This is an often confused concept amongst lay individuals. Please refer to this article for clarity:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-fact.html

To summarize, theories are not facts and evolution is both a fact and a theory. Religious people trivialize a theory as completely unsupported by facts, which is not true, but it is equally not true that a theory is a fact. One can say that evolution is a fact--if you are not speaking in regard to the theory of evolution, which is not a fact. It is a theory about the mechanism of evolution.

[mediamogul]

And don't forget the Big Bang, the ridiculous religion that believes everything came from nothing all by itself. Stupid Evilushonistists... don't you know that "from nothing, nothing comes"?

Why can't you believe that everything came from nothing, just like it says in Genesis...

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(10 minutes later) I've just had a cup of tea and a nice sit down; I'm feeling much better now.

Right. Who ever saw an explosion create something? Explosions only destroy things. So how could an explosion have created a crocoduck? It couldn't have. Therefore god.

[Godscreated]

I am copypasting this over from a post I made in the Atheism section, apologies to the admins and mods if this breaks the rules but the possible benefits make it worth it.

To every single theist who comes onto this forum saying that evolutionary theory is "a theory and not a fact," I am presenting this, fun, simple, and highly accurate explanation in the form of what I call the "puzzle analogy." Please read it before posting anything to this forum talking about evolutionary theory. Failure to do so is a silent contract that you have signed permitting me to lambast you and mercilessly sledgehammer you with contempt, ire, and insults belittling your intellect, negating any allowance for you to rightfully accuse me of being close-minded or ignorant, and generally making an ass out of yourself.

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If the atheists here on this forum seem twitchy and prone to going "FOR FUCK'S SAKE, ARE YOU DAFT?!" when you ask a question we've all probably answered a dozen times [in the last week alone], you have to understand; repeating oneself over and over again tends to induce stress, ire, and frustration. I in particular am very prone to flipping my shit when I have to explain something that is basically elemental levels of knowledge and understanding for anyone of average intelligence, especially when I've had to do so about five times or so in very recent memory. Lately we've had a huge influx of people coming onto the forums saying that "evolution is not a fact, it's a THEORY" not even realizing that to say so is a self-contradictory statement.

Theories ARE facts. They are accepted as facts, they have evidence and information gathered via empirical studies and through a lot of research to show that it is fact. I usually use the puzzle analogy: The hypothesis is the empty puzzle board. You have the box of puzzle pieces but you haven't really started to put anything up yet. You've spread the pieces out, now you're looking for the pieces to start with. Then comes the information gathering; you begin putting the pieces together, bit by bit. Ideas that are correct are pieces of the puzzle that fit together. Ideas that are not are the pieces that don't go in properly with the others, so they are set aside to be put up later, to connect to other pieces of data to complete the picture.

Theory is the point at which you now have a very clear picture of the completed puzzle. The puzzle itself is not finished, but looking at the puzzle, you can see the picture. It's not whole, it's not complete, but it's at the point where the picture is visible. When something becomes scientific law, the puzzle is finished, complete, all pieces are put together and the puzzle is finished; there's nothing left to add to it. You can, of course, touch up the puzzle; pieces may have faded and need to be re-inked or colored a bit to properly make the picture look absolutely perfect, which is an analogy to information coming in later that augments or slightly changes the pieces ever so slightly. But ultimately, that picture is done, everything else is just little details there to make it look even nicer.

The theory of evolution is a puzzle about 90% done. Now we're just looking for the puzzle pieces to fit into the remaining gaps, but the picture is there and we can see it.

Creation theory and intelligent design, however, are the equivalent of a guy who has no puzzle pieces up, he hasn't even opened the box. He has just looked at the cover of the box and made up his own conjecture on how he thinks the puzzle pieces, that he has not seen, are going to go. He is uninformed about the puzzle beyond how it's going to look, or at least, how he THINKS it's going to look. And to teach creationism as a valid school of thought in schools is to basically take the two people, one with his nearly finished puzzle and the other with his conjectures and what he "believes" the puzzle should and will be, and put them together and say that the guy who hasn't even bothered to open the box, and instead is just making shit up based on his own unfounded speculation, is just as valid on the subject of putting this puzzle together as the guy who has spent a ton of time actually putting these pieces together is.

Make sense now?

Good explanation of what a theory is, however if one assumes a picture from the start, one is working from an unproven assumption to prove the assumption, this does not work, it is not scientific.

Now assuming all those pieces you have are not related to a picture, the next thing that has to be done is prove that each pieces is true. It's a known fact that many in the past have, in the spirit of competition, fudged and even cheated to get a paper out before the competition. Fossils have been inaccurately put together, by this I mean fossilized bones of two different species have been used to create a complete skeleton, unfair practice.

When integrity is established in the field of evolution, then and only then might it be taken more seriously. Do not say that modern science has moved past this, the Chinese are guilty of this stuff very recently.

[Jackalope]

Wow, doesn't that make you wonder why peer review is a critical part of the process, and why research that hasn't undergone rigorous peer review is treated as speculative?

[The Grand Nudger]

When integrity is established in the field of evolution, then and only then might it be taken more seriously. Do not say that modern science has moved past this, the Chinese are guilty of this stuff very recently.

It has been established, and is "taken seriously". It's even taken seriously by your myth loving camp, which spends a considerable amount of it's time (and precious, limited mental ability) in attempting to shore their fairy tale up in the face of it. At least try to avoid making your god out to be a cosmic idiot. If it was involved, it wasn't by magic words and handwaiving. It wasn't by turnings the knobs and dials. A god that sets a chain of events into action in the distant prehistory of the cosmos (before cells, before life, before the rocks they live on ffs) is greater than an incompetent tinkerer by orders of magnitude.

[Phil]

When integrity is established in the field of evolution, then and only then might it be taken more seriously. Do not say that modern science has moved past this, the Chinese are guilty of this stuff very recently.

It has been established, and is "taken seriously". It's even taken seriously by your myth loving camp, which spends a considerable amount of it's time (and precious, limited mental ability) in attempting to shore their fairy tale up in the face of it.

One thing the christotards don't understand is in the off chance that evolutionary theory was ever replaced by another scientific theory, it would be one that gives the christotards even more conniptions. Considering the theory of evolution has been the best description of biological reality for over 150 years, can you even begin to imagine how much more successful any scientific theory that replaces it would be? To be honest, Christotardism would either be dead in the water or very soon afterwards would be DOA (not Christianity but christotardism aka christoholism aka fundamental and evangelical hooey).

[The Grand Nudger]

Well, to be fair, there are believers very much involved in science. I've seen some excellent presentations of evolutionary biology (and specifically human evolution) presented by a catholic (of all folks). Believing in a god doesn't prevent one from desiring a factually accurate picture of our reality or origins. Hell, I'd imagine that a person very much in love with the lord would be exceedingly interested in the particulars. It takes a very special brand of asshole to imagine that the cosmos must somehow bend to their own notions born of ignorance or lack of interest. As if the very god they propose is obliged to somehow accommodate their idiocy, rather then being free to be greater than whatever they have imagined it to be. It seems, that creatards prefer their gods to be small. They would rather have the god they've dreamt up, the one they are comfortable with, than any god which exceeds their understanding of a given subject. Uncertainty is unsettling. To be confronted with one's lack of knowledge is uncomfortable. For some, the realization that they must admit to having been mistaken is unthinkable, even if the cause of confusion is completely understandable.

(If science were ever going to render superstition DOA it probably would have done so by now. They'd just find some new excuse.)

[Phil]

Well, to be fair, there are believers very much involved in science.

Never said there weren't. What is in the parentheses at the end of my post should have clarified that. Should I reword it to make it clearer?

[The Grand Nudger]

Meh, nah, seems clear enough. I just don't have any confidence that even the most ignorant of beliefs would somehow give way to reason (they certainly haven't yet, and it isn't for lack of compelling evidence). "You can't reason a person out of a position they didn't reason themselves into" sort of thing, imo.