Evolution Is A Scientific Theory

Feb 22nd, 10 / 4 Comments

This is kind of a pet topic of mine. I have no problem with people practicing their religions, and I’m religious myself. I even have some pretty out there views on some things. However, the lack of scientific literacy in my country is astounding to me.

Evolution is real. It is a scientific theory. This means it has been tested in ways as rigorous as we can devise, we have observed the process, found supporting evidence, and not found contradicting evidence. This means, unless we make some new discovery that throws a gear in the works, evolution is a good explanation for how complicated life arose from simple life. Such a new discovery is likely to only cause us to refine our view of evolution though. Basically, that evolution happens is a fact. How it happens is currently the domain of theory.

For an example, consider gravity. It is also a theory. For a long time, we used Newton’s laws of gravity to model it. We still use these laws in most circumstances, since they get the job done. However, we also discovered that at very high speeds, gravity does some funky, unexpected things. This is where Einstein’s theory of general relativity comes in. It is a more specific theory of gravity, but it served to refine our knowledge of how gravity works, not invalidate Newton’s work.

This is what will likely happen when the next great discovery on evolution is made. It will refine our knowledge and make it more specific, rather than invalidate what we already know.

In any case, I think if anyone told you gravity is just a theory, you’d probably laugh at them. I hope you would anyway. It is a theory, but it’s quite an important part of our knowledge.

If someone tells you something is just a theory as a way of dismissing it, it’s because they don’t understand that scientific theories have lots of testing and observation go into them before they are called theories. They don’t just think something up and call it a theory. When they’ve just thought it up and are getting ready to test it, it’s a hypothesis. Don’t let the way words are used casually detract from their meaning when they are used in a scientific context. Understand that in science, words are used very precisely, to be sure everyone is on the same page.

Additional resources:

Evolution: Fact and Theory
Scientific Evidence Supporting Evolution Continues To Grow
Evolution Is a Fact and a Theory

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Science

Some Thoughts On Our Senate

Dec 11th, 09 / 0 Comments

I was recently reading a piece on the Huffington Post asking the Senate to force those who want to filibuster to actually speak on the floor continuously to halt moving forward with and voting on health care legislation. If you’d like, give a read to Bring Back the Cots! The Filibuster and Health Care Reform. Then understand that I think the idea of forcing those who want to filibuster to actually speak and maintain a presence in the Senate chambers is an excellent idea. This would dramatically cut down on the use of the filibuster and reserve it for times when there is a strong reason to use it rather than just a way to force every issue to require sixty votes instead of fifty-one.

However, some comments on the post seem to miss the point of the Senate as well. There have been people saying that Senators should be apportioned by population just like happens in the House of Representatives. However, the Senate was created as it is precisely to protect smaller states, such as my state of Maine, from being overruled by larger states, such as California. While that particular aspect is undemocratic, you have to realize we are a democratic republic, which means that it’s not all about the majority. The idea is to let the majority make the decisions most of the time, while still protecting the rights of the minority. Remember, states are basically semi-autonomous nations that bought into the United States government. They all had to agree to join when the country was created, and while the Constitution is our founding document, in many ways, it is also a treaty between the states saying which powers they keep for themselves and which powers they hand over to our alliance. When considered in this light, the Senate is there to make sure each individual state has an equal voice in the proceedings, while the responsibility of the House of Representatives is to make sure the people have an equal voice in the proceedings. Sure, this system isn’t perfect, but it is better than just doing representation by population in both houses, or equal state representation in both houses.

Now, I’ll be honest, I’m very dismayed that our Senators are speaking against meaningful health care reform, and if it were my choice, we’d have the democratic candidates in the Senate right now. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case, so we are dragging the debate down because of that. So I understand the frustration of those in other parts of the country, and I encourage all Maine residents to communicate their views on this to our Senators to try to sway them on their positions.

However, that doesn’t mean smaller states should lose their equal representation in the Senate. We should just lose the power to filibuster with impunity. This would go a long way toward restoring the balance of power as it seems to be intended.

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Politics