Misconceptions

[teegstar]

Hey everyone,

I've just started on these forums and upon reading a lot of topics I've noticed a few reoccuring statements.

For the purpose of keeping this a debate, I'm going to write some statements and I'd like to know whether you feel what i've state is correct, incorrect, or whether its new news to you.

1) Did you know that Darwin only EXPLAINED the Theory of Evolution, many scientists before him, some even thousands of years before, had very similar ideas. Darwin just put them all together with evidence - lots of it - to back up what he was saying. He built upon other peoples work and was forced to publish his work. In fact, it took him 20 years to publish his work because someone wrote to him (he was well known for his taxonomy) explaining a similar model to Darwins model - I.E. Darwin published it first to ensure he got credit for the Theory (which, as said, he did originally discover, my point being that there were others out there going down the same avenue he was)

2) Darwanism is not the principle the scientific community follows - Neo-Darwanism is. Whats the difference? Darwin knew nothing of DNA and how genes got passed from parent to offsping - he knew there were changed made in species but he had no way of explaining how those changes were passed on. He also knew nothing of genetic mutations, a key element in genetic variation among species, and the driving force of adaptation. Basically, Darwin was able to descibe what a car was, what it did, and what it looked like, but couldnt really tell you how it worked. There's a big difference.

3) Darwanism is 150 years old, Neo-Darwanism isnt even a decade old. Electricity is older. Your greatgrand parents have very little idea about evolution - if any.

4) A Scientific Theory is based on facts, but not necessarily a fact. Whats the difference? Facts are used as evidence to support the assumption. The Theory is considered to be true and correct unless evidence can be used to show otherwise. This doesnt mean that the original evidence wasnt a fact, it just means it was missing information that was vital to the theory (compare it to tossing a coin and getting heads 5 times in a row - its a fact you got it 5 times in a row but it doesnt mean that whenever you toss a coin, you're going to get 5 heads in a row)

What other misconceptions about Scientific Theory have you heard or do you know? And are any of them included in what I've said - let me know. You can have a good debate unless you *really* know what you're saying and I wanna make sure my foundations are correct 8)

[Cathar1950]

micatala wrote:

Many creationists are like lawyers who are very emotionally committed to their client, and cannot bear the thought that the client is actually guilty. They use whatever means necessary to defend the client, principally trying to discredit the prosecution's scenario of events and evidence whenever possible. However, they provide little evidence to support their own scenario of events, and typically do not engage in any kind of comprehensive review of their case for this scenario. When their scenario is criticized as highly implausible at best, they try to switch the discussion back to the prosecution's scenario

Excellent analogy. Personally I wish they were right. It would make talking to my family easier at least about some things. It is difficult to debate rational when there is so much data to go over just to talk about the same things. Science is always advancing and the discusion often lags way behind the research.