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"In casual speech scientists don't use the term theory in a particularly precise fashion." For instance: "Einstein's relativity is usually called 'the theory of relativity' while Newton's theory of gravity often is called 'the law of gravity.'"
But the "theory" best explains why the universe acts as it does. Newton's "law" imagined gravity to be, simply, a force that pulled on everything.
Still, despite the fact that Newton's force doesn't exist, it's easier to accept and comprehend than a four-dimensional universe in which orbits are straight lines.
Onward: I think it's best to think of a theory in this manner: "a testable model that is best capable of predicting future occurrences or observations and capable of being tested through experiment or otherwise verified through empirical observation." (Love you Wikipedia, and I promise not to forget Valentine's this year)
Einstein's 4-D universe allowed humans to, for the first time, explain why Mercury's orbit is what it is. And so on.
His models, theories, and theory of models currently best explain the universe. The universe could, in fact, be exactly as he explained it. Nothing has proven him wrong.
Still, the 4-D universe will always be just a theory simply because humans don't have access to every happening everywhere at any-/every time.
Then there's Cell Theory, which "refers to the idea that cells are the basic unit of structure in every living thing." ... "The theory says that new cells are formed from other existing cells and the cell is a fundamental unit of structure, function and organization in all living organisms." (Wiki)
Obvious, it seems. But still just a theory.
Now to (biological) evolution.
It's 100 percent true, factual, proven, unable-to-be-disproved that organisms change over time. You can watch organisms with short life spans evolve (develop; change over time). Organisms like bacteria and viruses that cause illnesses in humans; like the flu virus, which portions of the population are immunized against each and every year because each and every year the virus has changed enough to make the bugger immune to your previous year's immunization.
So, if you don't believe in evolution, you have the unfortunate habit of proving that evolution happens/has happened every single time you get sick. And you get sick an average of three times a year.
Evolution happens. You state its reality with sneezes and to your boss whenever you call in to work when you actually need to.
Here's the sticky thing:
The theory of how evolution works continues to be refined.
Meaning that evolution is just a fact that has a continually more precise theory behind its whats and wherefores.
PS: Creationism/Intelligent Design disproved: the duck-billed platypus.
The. End.
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Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Monday, January 5, 2009
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Equal rights for one.
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Abraham Lincoln is mentioned almost every time the media discusses Obama because it's whites' coded way of congratulating themselves for electing a black man and their having made it possible.
Every newsboy and newsgirl feels the need to say/write, at least, and very often apropos of nothing, that Lincoln is Obama's favorite president.
Notably: Obama is considered by the US media and the vast majority of its white people to be black and not white because -- apparently and terribly -- the One-Drop Rule still applies: "A person with any trace of African ancestry is considered black." Obama's mother was white and of Northwestern European ancestry. Obama's father was a black Kenyan, of black Kenyan ancestry. Therefore, Obama's ancestry makes him exactly -- to continue to speak very crudely -- half white and half black.
But we call him black.
Obama, like all bi- or multiracial people, is considered black, instinctively, by white people and white institutions because his skin color doesn't match his own mother's. The One-Drop Rule is embedded in white Americans' thinking.
Which means whites have a lot more discriminating to do:
"Genetic evidence appears to support the Out of Africa hypothesis. In the western half of Eurasia and in Africa, this hypothesis also seems the better explanation, particularly for the apparent replacement of Neanderthals by modern populations." (Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History -- scroll to/run a Find for "A Compromise Hypothesis.")
So Europeans and Africans, if not all people, share a common ancestor. A black one. Which means we're all black, according to One-Drop, the rule the US still applies.
Our genes also show that there is more genetic variance within "races" than between them. And that "race" is a stupid social construct (much more here) that has and is and will continue to be used to evil ends.
Skin color, despite science, remains a handy dividing line between an Us and a Them, and a handy indicator of who to hate, even if it's ourselves.
And let's hope Obama funds scientific research and gets it into public schools to begin the end of America's intense stupidity.
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Abraham Lincoln is mentioned almost every time the media discusses Obama because it's whites' coded way of congratulating themselves for electing a black man and their having made it possible.
Every newsboy and newsgirl feels the need to say/write, at least, and very often apropos of nothing, that Lincoln is Obama's favorite president.
Notably: Obama is considered by the US media and the vast majority of its white people to be black and not white because -- apparently and terribly -- the One-Drop Rule still applies: "A person with any trace of African ancestry is considered black." Obama's mother was white and of Northwestern European ancestry. Obama's father was a black Kenyan, of black Kenyan ancestry. Therefore, Obama's ancestry makes him exactly -- to continue to speak very crudely -- half white and half black.
But we call him black.
Obama, like all bi- or multiracial people, is considered black, instinctively, by white people and white institutions because his skin color doesn't match his own mother's. The One-Drop Rule is embedded in white Americans' thinking.
Which means whites have a lot more discriminating to do:
"Genetic evidence appears to support the Out of Africa hypothesis. In the western half of Eurasia and in Africa, this hypothesis also seems the better explanation, particularly for the apparent replacement of Neanderthals by modern populations." (Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History -- scroll to/run a Find for "A Compromise Hypothesis.")
So Europeans and Africans, if not all people, share a common ancestor. A black one. Which means we're all black, according to One-Drop, the rule the US still applies.
Our genes also show that there is more genetic variance within "races" than between them. And that "race" is a stupid social construct (much more here) that has and is and will continue to be used to evil ends.
Skin color, despite science, remains a handy dividing line between an Us and a Them, and a handy indicator of who to hate, even if it's ourselves.
And let's hope Obama funds scientific research and gets it into public schools to begin the end of America's intense stupidity.
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