Hacker News Reader

Comment by CmonDev | Hacker News Reader

I guess the dream of a scientocratic society proactively punishing ignorance won't materialise. Denying evolution? 10 lashes!

View on HN

Just a matter of vocabulary: "dismissal of scientific evidence" != "ignorance".

Evolution is indeed just a theory - the one every scientist sees as the most likely - but still a theory.

Edit (reply-limit): Thanks readerrr and cremno, valid points, will consider it in the future.

What I meant was, there have been theories before the current theory of evolution. For example Lamarck's one, which is long considered false but lately some aspects of it are reintroduced. If we would punish everyone for denying evolution we would be unable to advance it.

And of course this has nothing to do with teaching children biology. Of course children need to be taught evolution there.

You are using an incorrect definition of the word. Theory used in science[0] means:

a coherent group of tested general propositions, commonly regarded as correct, that can be used as principles of explanation and prediction for a class of phenomena

and not:

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

We have a separate word for the latter: a hypothesis.

[0]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory

http://www.notjustatheory.com/

I feel kind of bad mentioning it since everyone's bound to pile on, but evolution is a readily observed fact (e.g. breeding of dogs), while it's natural selection that's the theory...

Because science isn't about generating indisputable facts. If that's what you're doing, what you're doing isn't science. The epitome of good science is a predictive and well-supported theory like evolution.

Adding the word "just" implies a misunderstanding of how the scientific method works, because it doesn't get any better than a good theory.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com