This response written having seen Josh's warning.
Let's see if I can make this rational, reasoned and scientific enough ...
This is about science and seeking truth.

> I don't object to the idea of saying that scientific theories are just 
> that, theories, and should be considered with an open mind.
> What I think is misleading and objectionable is picking _one_ particular 
> theory to say that about, as far as I can tell because that theory is 
> uncomfortable to people with a certain world view, and teaching the rest 
> as fact.
> Perhaps children could really be encouraged to think for themselves if in 
> all school science textbooks there was a sticker:
>
> "This textbook contains scientific theories. These are all theories, not a 
> facts, regarding the way the universe works. This material should be 
> approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically 
> considered."

I'm very happy with all that. My reason for commenting was the appearance of 
the aim of stopping thinking childre thinking. I have an engineering degree 
or two but also consider myself a scientist. I desire that information be 
available and be able to be critically examined by all who would do so. My 
concern in the area of biology is that evolution is on many occasions taught 
as fact. You can probably google and find many such instances and it 
certainly is what happens in many schools and learned institutions in our 
country. When scientific theory, no matter how sound it may appear to be to 
its protagonists, becomes embedded as holy writ, then truth is not served. 
Even the best of working models are at risk of reality breaking through and 
to deny this is to attempt to hide truth.

> That way other theories, such as (just to pick a small handful) gravity, 
> the earth being round, the atomic model, relativity, plate tectonics, 
> thermodynamics, global warming, the Krebbs cycle and all other theories, 
> could also be thought about with an open mind, as all theories should.

Huzzah !!! :-)
And you pick an interesting cross section. Ranging from perhaps round earth, 
which is essentially as proven as any theory is going to get (but still 
depends utterly on our limited personal perceptions of reality) to gravity, 
where the best we know about our models is that something better will almost 
certainly replace them in due course. As long as evolution is officially 
allowed to lie somewhere on that scale, and not *too* close to the round 
earth end, then I'm happy. Once a theory is officially just that, 
individuals are allowd to think for themselves and the new Newtons can shift 
the theory to the point on the scale where it truly belongs. Lock the theory 
up as fact and the new Newtons may well go off and do something else 
instead.

> By just picking one theory out like this and not others, it does indeed 
> look like it is discrediting the science of evolution, and implying that 
> the other theories are somehow facts.

As above. The theory is claimed to be fact by a significsnt number of its 
protagonists. There will be some who read this, if they get this far, who 
will be gnashing their teeth in fury over the concept of anyone suggesting 
that evolution is a "theory". This may be hard to believe for anyone who has 
not met people who have such a "religious" grasp on their position.

> You might regard evolution as a "false religion",

Only when taught and held as "religion"
And as non-fact when taught as fact.
And as OK theory when taught as theory. May well yet prove to be false, but 
it has some predictive power and fits some of the data.

> but I would hope you are in a small minority if you are really trying to 
> make a religion out of science (or for that matter trying to make science 
> out of religion is just as bad) - that would be doing everyone a real 
> disservice.

I am in a VERY small minority (just ask James Newton ;-) ) BUT I'm not 
guilty of either of the above. I'm interested in knowing reality and truth, 
inasmuch as they may be known. Science does have to take some care in 
special areas, and many who practice science don't have a good grasp of 
this. The rule is "Science does not deal with those areas that it's methods 
cannot manage" (eg religious ones). BUT A large number of people 
misunderstand this rule to state "Science does not recognise that it is 
possible for any areas to exist that its methods cannot manage". What then 
happens is that we get the argument "We know it happened, or exists or ... 
so it MUSt have a scientific explanation". This changes science's viewpoint 
from not dabbling in religion to necessarily denying religion can possibly 
exist. Science becomes the font not only of all known truth but of all 
knowable truth. This untenable and unscientific position is the cause of 
many problems. But I should stop about there on that point :-). 
(Incidentally, Quantum Mechanics violates science's rules and places limits 
on knowability but science accomodates it quite happily. Breaking the rules 
can be OK on some occasions, but not on others :-).)

> I think evolution is simply a scientific theory like any other that 
> attempts to best fits the current observations. If another scientific 
> theory is proposed that better describes the observations (possibly with 
> the aid of better observations), that theory will eventually be accepted 
> instead, as so many other scientific theories have been overturned.

Agree! (Many don't alas)

> In the meantime, let's not give it any special status one way or the other 
> that sets it aside from other theories.

Agree.



        Russell McMahon

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