I live in Tennessee, USA. I'm an Atheist. I'm unabashedly girl-crazy; Unashamedly me.
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
Theory: Theories are constructed to explain, predict, and master phenomena (e.g., inanimate things, events, or behavior of animals). A scientific theory can be thought of as a model of reality, and its statements as axioms of some axiomatic system. The aim of this construction is to create a formal system for which reality is the only model. The world is an interpretation (or model) of such scientific theories, only insofar as the sciences are true.
Law: The laws of science are various established scientific laws, or physical laws as they are sometimes called, that are considered universal and invariable facts of the physical world.[dubious – discuss] Laws of science may, however, be disproved if new facts or evidence contradicts them. A "law" differs from hypotheses, theories, postulates, principles, etc., in that a law is an analytic statement, usually with an empirically determined constant. A theory may contain a set of laws, or a theory may be implied from an empirically determined law.
From wikipedia, not so hard to find considering you went to the trouble to put up this forum. The last time I checked, evolution was still a theory.
"To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree." -Charles Darwin
If you're so well read, surely you know about the irreducibly complex system, which all human beings represent. Google it if you don't know about it.
Also, if you came through "deep logical thought" to realize that there is no God, I would take it you've read the major books of religion in their entirety.
Dear Sir,
I think you may be misunderstanding the very definitions you have copy & pasted. In your first post, you used the word ‘theory’ in the general sense, like it’s just an idea or a hypothesis, with just as much merit as any other idea…
Keep in mind that all major theories that deal with the creation of earth, whether it be Big Bang, intelligent design, etc. are just that: theories.
… then you come back using theory in a ‘scientific’ sense, which as the definition rightly points out is a model that best explains the observed.
Here is an excellent explanation of what that definition means by Brian Dunning.
“A fact is something we observe in the world, and a theory is our best explanation for it. Stephen Jay Gould famously addressed this argument by pointing out that the fact of gravity is that things fall, and our theory of gravity began with Isaac Newton and was later replaced by Einstein’s improved theory. The current state of our theory to explain gravity does not affect the fact that things fall. Similarly, Darwin’s original theory of evolution was highly incomplete and had plenty of errors. Today’s theory is still incomplete but it’s a thousand times better than it was in Darwin’s day. But the state of our explanation does not affect the observed fact that species evolve over time.” - Brian Dunning, Skeptoid
In contrast, Irreducible complexity is not a theory at all, as it doesn’t provide a testable explanation for the observed fact that species evolve over time. What exactly does it explain? That things must’ve just spontaneously appeared? That’s an explaination? It’s also a lot of very failed logic that’s very easy to dismiss, which is exactly what the scientific community has done. What use is half an eye? Exactly half as much as a whole eye. Just ask someone with partial blindness. What use is half a wing? Half as much as a whole one. Great for slowing decent instead of flying. There are no systems shown to actually be irreducibly complex, not the eye, ear, wings or bacteria flagella, and even if they were, the point at which they became irreducible would be the point at which that theory would have to be discarded or changed to further explain how something becomes irreducibly complex in the first place. That’s what scientific theories do.
I’m always reading. I have read many religious texts including the Judeo-Christian Bible and the Christian Aprocrypha… as well as studied a little on their history, formation and subsequent alterations and revisions. Have you done any research into how and when the Bible and its books were originally written, formed and canonized or how the numerous manuscripts differ from one another and have changed over time?