A Christian Pastor Explaining Evolution Vs. The Bible

[Ouroboros]

I myself had the misconception that a scientific theory would become a scientific law after a long period of testing and observation, but what I see is that those concepts are not necessarily stages in a scientific idea's life. A theory is broader in scope, having its own internal system of logic that applies to related phenomena, while a law focuses on one sole phenomena (gravitation, for example). Regarding the theory of evolution, it encompasses several phenomena: genetic mutation (new sequences introduced into the genome), genetic recombination through sexual reproduction (the two Mendelian laws: segregation & independent assortment), Hardy-Weinberg principle (predict how common an allele is in the population through observation), population genetics, natural selection.

Well said.

[SirPhoenix]

Based on today's science, we won't have a "Law of Evolution", but who is to say that advances over the years won't lead to that. Two hundred years ago the concept of a transistor would have elcited a collective "Huh?" from the scientific community. Scientific discovery may yet yield a yet unknown fact of the universe that would allow humans to quantify evolution into a Law.

 

But I want my jetpack and teleporter first.

 

 

[Ouroboros]

Based on today's science, we won't have a "Law of Evolution", but who is to say that advances over the years won't lead to that. Two hundred years ago the concept of a transistor would have elcited a collective "Huh?" from the scientific community. Scientific discovery may yet yield a yet unknown fact of the universe that would allow humans to quantify evolution into a Law.

 

But I want my jetpack and teleporter first.

Like Hokun explained, there's a difference between what a scientific law and scientific theory mean.

 

A scientific law is a very narrow principle that can be explained in a rule or formula. A theory is a set of facts, laws, and models that explains a larger concept in nature.

 

Put it this way, the theory of evolution consists of many laws already (like Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium), so in my opinion, making the theory of evolution into a law would be to diminish it of all the things it consists of. And what would that law really do or say? It wouldn't even be practical. "Everything changes." That's the law of evolution, but it doesn't help us. The law is there. Everything does change. There's no doubt about it. Nothing is constant or stay the same. But this law of "everything changes" doesn't help us understand how species evolve, so if evolution became the law of "everything changes," we'd have to come up with a new term for the theory that explains how everything is changing and why. We could call it "theory of changes" (or keep the name "theory of evolution").

 

The difference is just how different alphanumeric letters are to grammar. Grammar can never become a letter in the alphabet, because grammar is about how all the pieces come together, not just one single piece in the puzzle.

 

A law is just a single piece, while a theory are many pieces together.

[Kuroikaze]

Based on today's science, we won't have a "Law of Evolution", but who is to say that advances over the years won't lead to that. Two hundred years ago the concept of a transistor would have elcited a collective "Huh?" from the scientific community. Scientific discovery may yet yield a yet unknown fact of the universe that would allow humans to quantify evolution into a Law.

 

But I want my jetpack and teleporter first.

 

 

 

The easiest way to understand why Theories never become laws is that they answer different questions.

 

A law answers the questions of how a particular thing behaves. In other words a description of a set of observable facts. The laws of motion or gravity explain how things move or behave, and give us clear formulas to calculate this.

 

A theory explains not the how, but the WHY of it. For instance, even though we have a law of gravity, we also have a theory, in which scientists are trying to figure out why gravity works the way it does, look up the "higgs-boson particle to see one of the current theories.

 

 

In fact, even in evolution there are laws, which are encompassed and explained by the theory, for instance there are laws about how taxonomical traits are inherited.

 

I have always found it funny that creationists always say things like "why haven't we seen a cat give birth to a dog" though according to clearly stated laws within evolutionary theory such a thing could not happen, even if we waited through a million years of successive generations of cats none of its decedents would turn into a dog and if one did it would actually prove evolution false, not true.

[Droptail]

I have always found it funny that creationists always say things like "why haven't we seen a cat give birth to a dog" though according to clearly stated laws within evolutionary theory such a thing could not happen, even if we waited through a million years of successive generations of cats none of its decedents would turn into a dog and if one did it would actually prove evolution false, not true.

 

A misunderstanding or deliberate/arrogant ignorance of what the theory actually states. It's difficult for me to remember back to when I believed in creationism/ID; what I do recall is that evolution was misrepresented as purely random chance or some kind of brute force algorithm that developed wholesale new body parts in a single generation (irreducible complexity argument there), with no real discussion of how natural selection operates or how lots of small, very probable changes can result in a seemingly-improbable end result.