Scientific Theory: The Evolutionary Theory

1. What is a scientific theory? How does the scientific use of theory differ from common uses of the word theory? What effect does this have on public discussion about Darwinian Evolution?

Scientific theories are hypotheses that have withstood repeated testing by different people and whose results have been confirmed to remain constant, therefore there exists little chance that new tests will change the outcome (Lewis & Germain). It does not rely on metaphysical explanations, instead it uses induction and deduction. (Professor M. Rowe, personal communication, September, 2015) A hypothesis may be considered a theory only after it has gone through rigorous and extensive testing utilizing the scientific process, and can be consistently proven

The Theory of Evolution is mostly concerned with how past and present species change over time and how these changes are decided, which does involve our common ancestor, but only from the perspective of how that ancestor influenced all future species. To focus on evolution, you must look at species who have already evolved, which makes it clear that evolution mostly concerns itself with what happened after life originated. (Gregory,

The truth is that, despite technological advances, humans are still evolving like every other species, the only difference is the direction. (Gregory, 2008) In fact, there is scientific evidence that humans are currently evolving because of our technological advancements. (Hawks, J., Wang, E., Cochran, G., Harpending, H., & Moyzis, R., 2007) The truth is that we, and every species currently in existence, are still evolving. The only difference is in the direction and speed of it, due to technological