Reality. Reason. Rights.

Representative Chisim of Mississippi has proposed “an act to require the state board of education to include certain language explaining that evolution is a theory in the inside front cover of certain public school textbooks.” Check out the PDF here or there.

The State Board of Education shall require every textbook that includes the teaching of evolution in its contents to include the following language on the inside front cover of the textbook:

“The word ‘theory’ has many meanings, including: systematically organized knowledge; abstract reasoning; a speculative idea or plan; or a systematic statement of principles. Scientific theories are based on both observations of the natural world and assumptions about the natural world. They are always subject to change in view of new and confirmed observations.

This textbook discusses evolution, a controversial theory some scientists present as a scientific explanation for the origin of living things. No one was present when life first appeared on earth. Therefore, any statement about life’s origins should be considered a theory.

Evolution refers to the unproven belief that random, undirected forces produced living things. There are many topics with unanswered questions about the origin of life which are not mentioned in your textbook, including: the sudden appearance of the major groups of animals in the fossil record (known as the Cambrian Explosion); the lack of new major groups of other living things appearing in the fossil record; the lack of transitional forms of major groups of plants and animals in the fossil record; and the complete and complex set of instructions for building a living body possessed by all living things.

Study hard and keep an open mind.”

If you want to make sure that people know that evolution is a just a “theory (love the scare quotes btw),” you’d better be willing to explain what theory means to the scientific community.

In everyday use, theory means a guess or a hunch, something that maybe needs proof. In science, a theory is not a guess, not a hunch. It’s a well-substantiated, well-supported, well-documented explanation for our observations. It ties together all the facts about something, providing an explanation that fits all the observations and can be used to make predictions. In science, theory is the ultimate goal, the explanation. It’s as close to proven as anything in science can be.

In a science textbook, the word theory does not have many meanings. It has a specific and profound meaning. Evolution is not “a controversial theory some scientists present as a scientific explanation for the origin of living things.” It is a decidedly uncontroversial theory (in the full scientific meaning of the word) that nearly all scientists support because “[i]t has been tested and scrutinised for over 150 years, and is supported by all the relevant observations.” It’s so uncontroversial to scientists that the National Academy of Sciences calls it a fact.

Scientists most often use the word “fact” to describe an observation. But scientists can also use fact to mean something that has been tested or observed so many times that there is no longer a compelling reason to keep testing or looking for examples. The occurrence of evolution in this sense is a fact. Scientists no longer question whether descent with modification occurred because the evidence supporting the idea is so strong.

I’ll finish with Ed Brayton, who tears apart another part of the proposed disclaimer.

[T]he notion that if no one witnessed an event, any and all claims about the event are equally valid is breathtakingly idiotic. I doubt Mr. Chism would apply the same “reasoning” to, say, forensic medicine. We convict people and even put them to death for crimes committed with no eyewitnesses. Let’s imagine a hypothetical crime and apply Chism’s “logic.”

A man is arrested for the rape and murder of a woman. His semen is found inside her body, his fingerprints are found on the murder weapon. But no one else was present to see him do it. Therefore, according to Chism’s argument, any statement made about the crime should be considered a theory and be given equal time and equal presumed validity. Pure idiocy.