Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site psivax.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!whuxlm!whuxl!houxm!mtuxo!mtunh!mtung!mtunf!ariel!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!hplabs!sdcrdcf!psivax!friesen
From: friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: A new voice.
Message-ID: <529@psivax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 1-Jul-85 21:45:01 EDT
Article-I.D.: psivax.529
Posted: Mon Jul  1 21:45:01 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 6-Jul-85 09:23:50 EDT
References: <2156@ut-sally.UUCP> <347@scgvaxd.UUCP> <368@spar.UUCP> <349@scgvaxd.UUCP>
Reply-To: friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: Pacesetter Systems Inc., Sylmar, CA
Lines: 23
Summary: 

In article <349@scgvaxd.UUCP> dan@scgvaxd.UUCP (PUT YOUR NAME HERE) writes:
>      My difficulty with Evolution is that it is nothing more than a
>      theory yet many treat it as fact.
>
	"Only a theory"!! Good grief, I thought that the people on
this net were intelligent to recognise this fallacy! It is based on a
confusion between the colloquial and scientific meanings of the word
"theory". In scientific parlance calling something a theory is almost
the most definate statement that can be made, it requires *much*
evidence to raiese a model from the level of a detail hypothesis to
the level of an accepted theory! Please remember, also, that science,
by its very nature is contigent, that is *no* absolute statements
can be made other than "under such and such conditions, X was observed"
(i.e raw observational facts). *Everything* else is interpretation
of the data, and its acceptance remains contingent upon new data.
Thus, a theory is as close to absolute as is possible while remaining
contingent on further observations.
-- 

				Sarima (Stanley Friesen)

{trwrb|allegra|cbosgd|hplabs|ihnp4|aero!uscvax!akgua}!sdcrdcf!psivax!friesen
or {ttdica|quad1|bellcore|scgvaxd}!psivax!friesen