Formal Fallacy

150 Years of Fools

The Church of England is going to apologize to Charles Darwin.  The church said that Christians repeated the mistake they made when they rejected Galileo’s theory of a heliocentric universe.

Interesting.

Of course, even though Church of England apologizes, they are only one church.  The Evangelicals of the south and the Intelligent Designers won’t be issuing apologizes to Darwin any time soon.  They still use the word “theory” as an insult.

Theory
– noun

1.)    a coherent group of general propositions used as principles of explanation for a class of phenomena: Einstein’s theory of relativity.

2.)    a proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural, in contrast to well-established propositions that are regarded as reporting matters of actual fact.

Okay.  So the definition of theory is regarded as WORSE than a fact.  But Evolution is a theory, AND a fact.  The two are different things, not notches on a scale.

Facts are hard data.  Theories take that data and interpret it into a structure of ideas that explains the facts.  Gravity is a theory.  But the fact is, whatever goes up must come down.  The theory of gravity explains how that happens.  Animals evolve.  Evolution explains how that evolution occurs.

If we stop teaching evolution because it is only a “theory,” then perhaps we should stop teaching the theory of gravity and instead teach Intelligent Falling.

Theory of Falling… whatever goes up, must come down… because God wants it to.

What about the theory of relativity or the theory of music?

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.  Because the Church initially rejected Darwin’s ideas, the United States must now have to fight school boards in order to teach Evolution is science class.  The church doesn’t owe an apology to Darwin, it owes an apology to us… the people who suffered the consequences of fools 150 years ago.

Chris