Part 2
Chapter 1 – “Only a Theory?” Dawkins begins by expressing the sense of frustration that biologists feel at having to fight a rearguard action to deal with those who would undermine the whole foundation of their subject. The opposition is increasingly well-organized, well-financed and politically muscular.
Imagine the plight of a teacher of Roman history who constantly has to put aside his enthusiasm for the classics to respond to a vocal group who assert that the Roman Empire never existed and that all modern languages sprang into being independently and owe nothing to Latin; or the teacher of 20th century history whose lectures are disrupted by holocaust deniers. Imagine being faced with demands to "teach the controversy" and give equal time to the alternative theory that the Holocaust was invented by Zionists.
Such is the position of many science teachers. No longer a peculiarly American problem, due to influence from America, growing Islamic presence and an official commitment to “multiculturalism” teachers in Europe now face the same issues. Interestingly the opposition to evolution is not coming from senior-clergy, albeit they wish to accredit god with starting or guiding the process. Sadly their enlightenment is not filtering down to the pews. More than 40% of Americans believe that humans were a special creation by god within the past 10,000 years. With very obvious and provocative connotations Dawkins refers to these as “History Deniers” or 40-percenters.
If anybody is tempted to compromise with the doubters Dawkins sets out his stall early on with the following statement;
“Evolution is a fact. Beyond reasonable doubt, beyond serious doubt, beyond sane, informed, intelligent doubt, beyond doubt evolution is a fact. The evidence for evolution is at least as strong as the evidence for the Holocaust, even allowing for eye witnesses for the Holocaust…No reputable scientist disputes it, and no unbiased reader will close this book doubting it”
Clearly this book is not written to offer readers a few things to consider or to sow a few seeds of doubt in the minds of creationists. The gloves are off; this is intended as a no-holds-barred, lethal assault on a superstitious world-view that is an affront to reason.
He now turns his attention to this most basic and frustrating of all objections to evolution, “It’s ONLY a theory”
There are two quite distinct definitions of the word “theory”. When referring to evolution scientists mean something very different from its common meaning of a “mere hypothesis, speculation or conjecture”. A scientific “theory” is a system of statements held as an explanation of a group of facts or phenomena. It is a hypothesis that has been confirmed by observation or experiment.
The heliocentric Theory of the solar system is an example of this meaning of “theory”. The earth and other planets orbit the sun; this is a theory. Evolution is likewise a theory in this sense. It too has been confirmed by observation and experiment and it accounts for a massive group of facts.
It is necessary to acknowledge the pedants who claim that scientific theories, unlike mathematical theorems can never really be proved. The best scientists can do is to fail to disprove things. Pythagoras’ theorem can be proved; the claim that the sun is bigger than the earth cannot, but any reasonable person would accept the evidence and credit it with the status of fact. Evolution is a fact in the same sense that it is a fact that Paris is in the Northern hemisphere.
The two senses of “theory” can be illustrated by the mathematical terms “conjecture” and “theorem”. For example the Goldbach conjecture (any even integer can be expressed as a sum of two primes) has been demonstrated to be true for all numbers up to 300 thousand million, million, million but has never been proven mathematically and therefore is denied the status of theorem. But does anybody doubt it is a fact? Dawkins proposes “borrowing” the term theorem (but spelled theorum) for scientific “theories” such as photosynthesis, the earth is not flat, and evolution by natural selection.
“As Bertrand Russell said “We may have come into existence five minutes ago, provided with ready-made memories, with holes in our socks and hair that needs cutting”. Given the evidence now available, for evolution to be anything other than a fact would require a similar confidence trick by the creator, something that few theists would wish to credit.”
Dawkins then goes on to discuss the way in which we should understand the word "facts" in connection with evidence for a science like evolution.
He contrasts the unreliability of human observation with the power of scientific inference. He took part in a now notorious experiment that ought to give pause to any juror listening to supposed reliable testimony. A similar example can be seen in this video. ...
In trying to reach a conclusion on the origins of the diversity of life we are like detectives who come on a crime scene after the events. We do not have a video of what happened but we do have an abundance of evidence as to how the world became the way it is.
A common mistake or fear that people have is that all current beliefs must one day give way to new revised understandings of the world. Dawkins opposes this pessimistic view. Many things we once believed have been overturned but many more are certain beyond doubt because they are based on good evidence. The sun is bigger than the earth; this truth will never be superseded. It is the intention of this book to show that evolution is on equally solid ground.
Coming next - Chapter 2 "Dogs, Cows and Cabbages".
