OK, stand back everyone, we're going to do some science...
I saw something on facebook yesterday. It was a picture of people base-jumping beneath the words, "Dear Creationists: Remember, gravity is just a theory too!" This is something often quoted by atheists. It is supposed to be an argument against those nutters who seem to think that reminding everyone that the theory of evolution is "just a theory" somehow reduces its significance. Of course the theory of evolution is just a theory, a collection of arguments that seek to explain how life evolved here on earth. And for the record, it's about as undeniable and self-evident as it's possible to get.
But lets go back to that original quote, "gravity is just a theory too". Despite the fact that this is often quoted, I've never been comfortable with it, and yesterday it dawned on me why. Gravity isn't a theory, it's a force. A theory is a collection of arguments that seek to explain a phenomenon. Gravity is not a series of arguments. It's the phenomenon itself. It's the force we see exerted on a ball when we drop it. It's the force that keeps the planets in orbit. There are of course several theories that do seek to explain gravity. Newton's theory, published in the 17th century, was the first. It was however shown to be flawed, and it was Einstein's theory of General Relativity that corrected the flaw. However, and I fully admit I don't understand this, General Relativity is not fully compatible with Quantum theory, and that's why gravity won't fit into the current standard model.
So, and this is my point, telling a creationist that gravity is both undeniable and "just a theory" is at best unhelpful, and at worst, just plain wrong. The force of gravity is indeed undeniable, but it's not a theory. The various theories seeking to explain gravity are theories, but they are all known to be flawed, or at least incomplete, and are not widely accepted as a fact.
Loading comments...