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?
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.
----
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?
