(February 14, 2014 at 3:11 pm)Bad Wolf Wrote: The problem with comparing the bible and scientific peer-reviewed articles, is that the articles are reliable, valid and accurate and (in most cases) demonstrably true, whereas the bible is not.I think the most important difference is that we can "update science" when we do get it wrong. Humanity has "known" a lot of things that were wrong in the past, but we can correct that as we learn more. If your religious beliefs are given by a perfect and all-knowing god then they cannot be changed without seriously damaging the foundation of the entire belief system. The best you can do is claim that you "misunderstood what god was telling" you, but that only gets you so far.
"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 don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould
