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I recall my biology teacher once telling us that in science, there are no facts, there are only theories that are so well supported that everyone accepts them as fact...eh, I suppose I should probably go looking this up...
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Well, that does make sense, depending on how you look at it. From one perspective, what you observe is factual - for instance, you look outside, you see a tree, thus it's a fact that there's a tree outside. Of course, the tree could just be an illusion, a hologram, or perhaps just another plant that happens to look almost exactly like a tree, but it isn't. It's similar with evolution - evolution has been observed happening in nature, but perhaps we're observing it wrong, or it's all an elaborate illusion of some sort. Now, the difference between evolution and the tree is that many more people have observed evolution over many more years than have observed that one particular tree. Naturally that doesn't make it "true", or a "fact"...but because it's really impossible to "prove" anything (including perhaps your own existence, but that's another debate), can it be argued that nothing is true and that facts don't exist?
Now, if nothing is true, can we assign "relative truth" to some things? For instance, can we say that, even though nothing is really true, it's safe to assume that what our senses observe is reasonably true? This is the whole basis of my saying that evolution is a fact, but the Darwin's theory is just an attempt to explain an observed fact, and it could be right or wrong (in fact, it's most likely the latter - I would be surprised if the current theory never had to be altered). If you can't accept your observations as being reasonably true, then you can't accept anything as being true; and personally, I would prefer not to descend any further into madness than I already have.
Think of it this way - can you irrefutably
prove that you're required to pay taxes this year? Theoretically you can't - the people who say you do may be lying, after all. Besides that, how are you supposed to prove what country you really live in? Maybe all the maps and signs that indicate where you live are just part of some elaborate hoax. Perhaps you think you live in Seattle, but you're actually living in Shanghai, and you're just being duped by some massive conspiracy.
You have to assume that certain things are reasonably true; in this case, you have to assume that you really do live in the country you think you live in, and you have to assume that you have to pay taxes this year.
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I recall my biology teacher once telling us that in science, there are no facts, there are only theories that are so well supported that everyone accepts them as fact
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It works the same outside of science. The evidence that you live in a certain country or that you have to pay taxes to that country is so overwhelming that you just accept it as being true. But is it really true? As far as I'm concerned, that's irrelevant, and the same goes for the observed process of evolution - sure, it might all be a grand hoax, but for the sake of your own sanity, you should safely assume that it isn't.
Sorry if this doesn't really make sense.
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