Theory
Thu November 15th, 2007, 12:38 AM EST | 2 comments
There's this article on Wired arguing that scientist should rename the "Theory of Evolution" to the "Law of Evolution". The arguments are basically that the advocates of creationism and intelligent design are playing language games with the disconnect between the scientific term "theory" and the laypersons' term "theory".
Not that I've ever been in the unenviable position of arguing against creationists, but I always thought the following response would be effective, without forcing all the scientists to rally together and agree to prescriptively changed their language: "We (scientists) have as much confidence in the theory of evolution as we do the theory of gravity."