Stick it!

Again, thanks to Left End of the Dial.

You've undoubtedly heard about the stickers various school districts have been putting on science textbooks to curry favor with right-wing fundamentalists who deny the reality of evolution because it conflicts with their Biblical literalism. One from Cobb County, Georgia, reads

This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered.

Now, first off, it should be noted that the sticker shows a deep ignorance about evolution: Evolution is not about the origin of life but about the development and change in life forms once life emerged on Earth. They are two different subjects.

But leave that aside for the moment. Jumping off from Cobb County's sticker, Colin Purrington, Associate Professor of Evolutionary biology at Swathmore College, has come up with some more warning stickers for textbooks. Definitely worth a look. And a printout.

Footnote: For those who get told evolution is "only a theory," the proper answer is that there is nothing "only" about a theory. As Paul Ehrlich put it,

Scientific hypotheses are, in one way or another, tested against nature - the "real world" that all scientists conventionally agree is "out there." Only when hypotheses are sufficiently tested and bind together information from relatively diverse areas that previously had not been connected do they properly become theories. But that is the opposite of the popular understanding of the term; it's scientific meaning is much closer to that of the word "fact" in common parlance. Theories embody the highest level of certainty for comprehensive ideas in science. Thus, when someone claims that evolution is "only a theory," it's roughly equivalent to saying that the proposition that the Earth circles the sun rather than vice versa is "only a theory." Evolution is, in fact, a very useful theory.

(Quoted at Evolution: Fact and/or Theory? - a useful antidote to the poison of creationism and so-called "intelligent design," which is just creationism in it's Sunday best.)

Put another way, in science, a theory is a hypothesis confirmed by observation and experiment to the point where it does not require further demonstration and the burden of proof is on those who would deny its accuracy. In the case of evolution it is no longer enough (and hasn't been for some time) to say we don't know every detail or haven't found every transitional fossil. The basic principle of change over time in interaction with environment stands unchallenged by anything but pure assumption. Saying evolution should be doubted or questioned because questions remain is exactly - and I do mean exactly - like saying the existence of gravity should be questioned because scientists looking to unite gravity with quantum mechanics believe the force of gravity should be mediated (transmitted) by gravitons, which no one has ever found.

The details of evolution provoke spirited debate among scientists. The fact of evolution does not. And anyone who tries to tell you different is not doing science. Period.