Well, herpaderp. Looks like I failed at reading.
Theories, in science, are also things that are different than we think in layman's English. Gravitation remains a "theory". But I'm pretty sure that even the most anti-evolution sort wouldn't claim that gravity isn't real and that rather we are all held onto the surface of the planet by the loving embrace of an omnipresent deity.

...no one says that, right? I'm not gonna go Googling for that.

Come on guys, google this stuff yourselves. Lets hear more from our religious friends, that is more fun.

There's actually a good amount of discussion on the subject by people smarter than us, but the amount of voices for Evolution being a theory and only a theory is rapidly going down. For a good reason, since most arguments for Evolution being a theory and only a theory really stretch the word 'Theory' into useless proportions. But yeah, let's leave the discussion to people who have dedicated their lives to study the subject.

Look, all I was trying to do by calling it a theory was put it next to general relativity and other scientific theories that are almost universally accepted as fact, so that our religious dudes see what their popular "just a theory" argument really means. Thanks for ruining it!

There's nothing to ruin you know, people believed world is a disc in the middle of the universe for a considerable amount of time in spite of being faced with the facts, it's not like anything of the 'it's scientific theory!' sort would sway any single person who chooses to blindly believe something else.

People believed they've been given dominion over a disc standing in the middle of the universe, with everything else revolving around us. Bloody hell, I've never realized just how incredibly arrogant humanity is

It's not the scientists that cannot carbon date properly:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APEpwkXatbY

I think it's more that those arguing against evolution use 'it's only a theory' to imply that it's just some sort of back-of-an-envelope doodle, wild conjecture that is untested, unverified and really rather flimsy - when in fact it is anything of the sort. The correct term for what they *think* theory means is hypothesis.

There is no such thing as an absolute fact, understand this. Facts do have a tendency to evolve. However the rule of the thumb is not to derive facts based on pre-conceptions but on the basis of evidence and objective reasoning. Facts must be tenable.

That is the essence of scientific conjecture. There is sufficient evidence for evolution,these have been corroborated.

@on topic: I find it highly amusing when religious people, when they lack evidence resort to red herrings and ad hominem attacks. It only makes them lose credibility.

Still

The whole idea that this incomprehensibly vast place of existence was created for the sole benefit of a bunch of monkeys living on less than a speck of dust always struck me as such.

I also get annoyed when that arrogance is extended into the study of life, as in, life out there requires the same conditions to exist as life down here.

To be sure, it's a good lead to go on but the discussion talks like it's the only way life could form.
I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that there is some fucked up living thing out there which completely defies our understanding of biology. Then again, I guess it does no good to search for speculative forms of life...

Also, taken as a whole, fiction has an incredibly unrealistic portrayal of our capabilities against any given alien threat. Come on guys, humans aren't that special.

I concur. Human beings carry a finite number of senses (21 as it is known) and there is much that escapes our attention. Who knows what exists in the spaces in-between? Perhaps these aliens are all around us and we can't seem to perceive them. In a way, it is a small mercy.If we were to see everything that reality conceived then we would all be driven insane, I think.

Life may not always be delightful too behold and perhaps we would be made aware of our own innate grotesqueness then.

How about some nice soothing music for everybody.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JAm4-fvI5U

Well, Christian theology does contain something called the Fall, is a corruption of everything from how God originally made it.

Which "god" purposely set up for humans to fail, then punished them.

You guys speak with no knowledge. Everything changed when Adam and eve sinned and were banished from the garden. Seriously people, go study before you open your mouths.

Were pushed into sin because if "god" is all knowing and powerful he should have known what would happen, yet still put a tree there to begin with. So god is an asshole for punishing people he pushed into sinning.