“Evolution is just a theory.”
What people usually mean when they say this is “Evolution is not proven fact, so
it should not be promoted dogmatically.” Therefore people should say that! The
problem with using the word “theory” in this case is that scientists use it to
mean a well-substantiated explanation of data. This includes well-known theories
such as Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and Newton’s Theory of Gravity, as well
as lesser-known ones such as the Debye–Hückel Theory of electrolyte solutions.
It would be better to say that particles-to-people evolution is an
unsubstantiated hypothesis or conjecture.
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