A fact is something that exists beyond question. It is an actuality, an
objective reality. It is established by solid evidence.
A theory is something unproved but at times assumed true for the sake of
argument. It has yet to be proved as factual. Nonetheless, sometimes
something is declared to be a fact that is only a theory.
The theory of organic evolution falls into this category.
New York University professor, Irving Kristol. His contention is that if
evolution were taught in the public schools as the theory it is rather
than as the fact it isn’t, there would not be the controversy that now
rages between evolution and creationism. Kristol stated: “There is also
little doubt that it is this pseudoscientific dogmatism that has
provoked the current religious reaction.”
“Though this theory is usually taught as an established scientific
truth,” Kristol said, “it is nothing of the sort. It has too many
lacunae [gaps]. Geological evidence does not provide us with the
spectrum of intermediate species we would expect. Moreover, laboratory
experiments reveal how close to impossible it is for one species to
evolve into another, even allowing for selective breeding and some
genetic mutation. . . . The gradual transformation of the population of
one species into another is a biological hypothesis, not a biological
fact.”
Kristol comments on this: “We just don’t know of any such ‘quantum
jumps’ that create new species, since most genetic mutations work
against the survival of the individual.” And Gould’s “greatest
evolutionist of our century,” Theodosius Dobzhansky, agrees with
Kristol. His statement about many mutations being lethal is especially
true of large-scale, quantum-jump mutations; also significant are his
words that ‘mutations that make big improvements are unknown.’ Lacking
evidence for his large-scale changes, Gould falls back on the old
timeworn dodge of evolutionists: “Our fossil record is so imperfect.”
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