Glenn Reynolds has a photo of the Mars landscape, posted here, and stamped with a notice that: "Spherical planets and interstellar bodies are are [sic] theory, not a fact. Please view these picture with an open mind."

"I GUESS," says Reynolds, "THIS WILL BE NEXT, from various under-informed Boards of Education." His target, I'm sure, is the warning sticker in some science textbooks regarding evolution.

On one hand, he makes a good point: scepticism about something you can see, or see a picture of, is rather ridiculous.

On the other hand, his point would have been better made had he posted a photograph of Darwinism, with the same warning sticker on it. In other words, his attempt at a comparison fails; for the two things he wants to compare are not relevantly similar.

What he wants to assert, apparently, is that writing off evolution as a theory is as silly as writing off spherical plantets and interstellar bodies as theories, as well as that doing so is the work of the under-informed. In fact, what he actually does, as far as I am concerned, is point out the differences between the theories of (a) spherical planets and interstellar bodies and (b) Darwinism. You can at least photograph spherical planets and interstellar bodies. You cannot photograph evolution. (And saying that you can photograph the results of evolution is to beg the question.)

This all reminds me of a time in one of my earliest philosophy classes. One of the students expressed some doubt about the theory of evolution precisely because it was "only a theory." Our professor retorted, "Well gravity is only a theory, but you're not goint to jumping off a tall building because of that, now are you?"

Let's think about gravity for a moment. Isn't it true that gravity's being only a theory is not a sufficient reason for jumping from a tall building? One wants to say yes. But to do so is to fail to distinguish between: (1) the fact that objects fall to earth at an acceleration of 32 feet per second per second and (2) the theory that explains why this is so. When one says that gravity is only a theory, one is confusing things a bit. It is not only a theory that objects, including people jumping from buildings, fall to earth; it is an observable fact. One can say of the explanation for why this is so that it (i.e., the explanation) is only a theory, but that would not make it safe to jump from tall buildings.

The theory of evolution seeks to explain the unity and diversity of life. It is an observable fact that life exhibits both unity and diversity. And any theory about life must offer an explanation for this. Here, the unity and diversity of life compare with the fact that objects fall to earth. And the evolutionary explanation for why this is so compares with the explanation for why objects fall to earth.

And so, it is not as ludicrous to write off evolution as only a theory as it would be to write off planets as being such. An explanation for why there are planets is not the same thing as a planet, or a picture of one. An explanation for why there is unity and diversity to life is not the same as that unity and diversity.

Glenn Reynolds comparison just doesn't work. Nice try, though. (Yes, a nice try at a cheap shot.)

As long as I'm on the subject of evolution: It is difficult for me, even now, to understand evolutionists' sad devotion to a theory that really has nothing going for it. When I was an atheist I had trouble with the theory precisely because no experiments can be performed on origins. Yet I could not explain to myself how scientists could accept it if it were not true. It must be, I thought, that they are so very much smarter than me. I no longer think that. (Well, Steven Hawking is pretty smart.)

The other thing that bothered me was evolution's lack of predictability. Evolution relies on chance, making it rather difficult to make predictions from. Compare this with a theory like that of gravity, with a mathmatical formula allowing us to make fairly accurate predictions. Where is the mathmatical formula for Darwinism that would enable us to predict where evolution is going?

Evolution is a theory about the past, like theories about the fall of the Roman empire. However it fell, Rome is gone. Theories about its fall are ultimately speculative, and not subject to experimentation, to proof, or to probabilification. And neither are theories of origins.

On the other hand, the non-theist's devotion to evolutionary theory is highly understandable. For the first time ever, really, in human history, Darwinism made it intellectually respectable to be an atheist. But, more than that, being committed to non-theism, they have, as it were, no place else to go. No matter how flawed the theory may be with respect to experimentation, predictability, or even circular reasoning (e.g., "transitional forms"), they have, apart from conversion, no place else to go. In the end, it's all about the role that ultimate commitments play. Even an atheist must be granted his own creation myth.