Timelines (continued)
The closest parallel to the modern U.S. is pre-Civil War America. Nearly every family had members in their extended clans who angrily denounced their own views on slavery, suffrage, and evolution (after 1859 when Darwin published On the Origin of Species). In today’s world, you can add climate change as another polarizing topic which shouldn’t be — considering the 99% scientific consensus and overwhelming data proving that global warming is not only real but is an existential threat to the survival of the human race. And the clock is ticking toward irreversible doom.
Nonetheless, the American public keeps electing climate-change deniers to Congress and the Presidency. In 2017 President Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement, an accord signed by every country on the planet, which he said: “disadvantages the United States to the exclusive benefit of other countries.” Translation: it isn’t good for the fossil fuel industry in the U.S.
Perhaps there are members of your family clan who dismiss climate change or evolution with the dismissive remark that “it’s only a theory”. Jerry A. Coyne crushes this condescending attitude in Why Evolution is True by telling the following story and exposing the fallacy.
“Addressing an evangelical group in Texas in 1980, Ronald Reagan characterized evolution in this way: ‘Well, it is a theory. It is a scientific theory only, and it has in recent years been challenged in the world of science and is not yet believed in the scientific community to be as infallible as it once was believed.’ The key word in this quote is ‘only’. Only a theory.” (Coyne 2009)
His false statement and use of the condescending phrase only a theory probably elicited loud applause from his evangelical audience. Nevertheless, the crucial distinction is that the word theory is one thing in common usage, as in “My theory is that Tony kissed Malory behind the woodshed.” Meaning: that is my guess, my speculation, my conjecture. In science, however as Coyne illustrates, theory has a much more precise and rigorous definition. A scientific theory “is much more than just a speculation about how things are: it is a well-thought-out group of propositions meant to explain facts about the real world… Second, for a theory to be considered scientific, it must be testable and make verifiable predictions.” (Coyne 2009)
Coyne goes on to say that “atomic theory isn’t just a statement that ‘atoms exist’; it’s a statement about how atoms interact with one another, form compounds, and behave chemically. Similarly, the theory of evolution is more than just the statement that ‘evolution happened’: it is an extensively documented set of principles…that explain how and why evolution happens.” (Coyne 2009) It is testable, makes verifiable predictions, and is supported by a tremendous amount of scientific evidence.
Therefore, those on the denial side of evolution, climate change, etc. shouldn’t be allowed to use the words only a theory to dismiss scientific theories. As Coyne summarizes, “Evolution is still called a “theory,” just like the theory of gravity, but it’s a theory that is also a fact.” (Coyne 2009)
Next, let’s turn our attention briefly to human evolution since in the U.S. there is still so much resistance to it. Afterward, we can finally put the Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age into perspective as we begin to explore the population in the Americas before Columbus brought the holy cross to its shores. (to be continued in next post)
