From: Chris Ho-Stuart <>
Newsgroups: aus.religion,aus.religion.christian,nz.soc.religion
Subject: Re: Women teaching in Church
Date: 23 Apr 1999 03:15:58 GMT

In aus.religion.christian John Fulton <> wrote:
> In message <> - "Citadel Design"
> <> writes:
> Facts are few and afr between.  It is never possible to prove that
> something is "so".  Is is only possible to prove that it is "not so" by
> finding exceptions to it.

If your paragraph captures what you mean by "fact" and "proof", then it
follows that there nothing which is "fact" and nothing which is "proof",
except in formal abstract logic.

However, we still manage to find use for these terms in real life.

Generally speaking, a fact is something which is true, and we use
the term of propositions which are so obviously true that there is
no credible reason for doubting them. A deductive proof in formal
logic works by axioms and rules of inference; this is of little use
for empirical propositions. In science (or in law, or in anything
else supported inductively from empirical observation) proof means
confirmed to an extraordinary degree.

In this sense, we can "prove" that the ice cap over Greenland is very
thick, effectively ignoring the remote possibility of errors in all
our instruments and of all drilling cores being cited over a little
crack that just happens to extend well below the real ice cap. And
so yes, it is a fact that the ice cap over Greenland is very thick.

Essentially, your paragraph applies mathematical meanings of fact
and proof outside of their intended scope. By scientific usage
(and conventional usage), facts are not that uncommon, and we do
accept them on the basis of empirical inductive proofs.

> The scientific method makes observations, finds patterns, and makes a
> hypothesis as to what is happening.  The hypothesis will be accepted by
> the scientific community so long as it works and makes useful
> predictions.  That is how things work.  There is no certainty in any
> scientific work.  It is all observation, patterns, and hypothesis.

Quite so.

And yet, it is a fact that matter of composed of atoms, and we are
quite certain of it. So there is some sort of certainty, surely.

> You request is therefore not reasonable as it can never be fulfilled. 
> Nobody ever claimed that evolution was a fact.

This is false.  A quick check in any university library should reveal
that many modern texts in evolutionary biology make a particular
effort to point out that evolution is, in scientific terms, a fact;
and also what they mean by this claim.

For those who would like a web reference, I cite a white paper on
"Evolution, Science and Society" by a committee of prominent
scientists, chaired by Douglas Futuyma (author of an excellent text
on evolutionary biology). The paper has been in preparation for
some years, and it is now endorsed by the following societies:
    American Institute of Biological Sciences
    American Society of Naturalists
    Animal Behavior Society 
    Ecological Society of America
    Genetics Society of America
    Paleontological Society 
    Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution 
    Society of Systematic Biologists
    Society for the Study of Evolution 

This paper has a section on this very point, called
    "EVOLUTION: FACT, THEORY, CONTROVERSY"
The URL is
    http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~ecolevol/fulldoc.html#fact

I won't bother to defend the claim that evolution is a fact right
here. Readers should note that evolution is *also* (claimed to be) a
theory, which in scientific terms means that it EXPLAINS a large body
of related facts. The business of science is constructing theories
(that is, explanations) for observations, and evolution stands as
one of the most successful and powerfully confirmed theories of
all science.

Of course, any text describing evolution as a fact and a theory
would have to justify those evaluations; and no doubt some of my
net.colleagues would disagree with those evaluations.  The question
is whether they do so with any real understanding of the content of
evolutionary theory.

My major point is this -- whether one considers evolution to be more
or less well established than other scientific theories, this needs
to be based on understanding of the theories and their empirical
basis. Without that understanding, opinions are worthless.

Thus the real debate focuses on observations and their explanation.
It is not resolved simply by definition of the term "fact".

> The status is creations vs evolution is best determined by the
> predictions that follow from each hypothesis.

Quite so indeed. I've snipped the remainder of your post, which
makes some good points.

Many people use "hypothesis" and "theory" interchangably. It is
as well to bear in mind that the word "theory" in science (and
maths) is more usually taken to mean "explanation", or "explanatory
framework". (See the URL cited above for discussion.)

Cheers -- Chris Ho-Stuart