User:Ed Poor/aspects of evolution

Dialogue about "evolution" frequently becomes confusing. This might be a deliberate strategy of partisans in the legal battle of Evolution education in American public schools.

Here are some ideas I personally have about three distinct aspects of "evolution" which I hope will assist contributors to this encyclopedia. But first a disclaimer or proviso. (declamation?)

• I utterly reject the materialist Theory of evolution, i.e., the belief (supported by around 1 in 8 Americans) that human beings "evolved" from animals without God's intervention. I regard that as unscientific nonsense, Pseudoscience, a dogma dressed up in a Halloween costume to trick people. I am implacably hostile to that idea.

Nonetheless, editors who are trying to write about how religious believers (and other critics of the scientific theory of evolution regard the whole matter) need to understand the different words used by various writers. For example, neologisms like "unguided evolution" differ from standard 'scientific' usage.

The main aspects of "evolution" studied (or asserted) by biologists are:

1. the gradual appearance of new forms of life over millions of years
2. the various processes by which these new forms of life came into being, such as mutation
3. theories which explain points #1 and #2.

Clearly all three points are at odds with Young Earth creationism and cannot be reconciled with it.

Arguments about these ideas often get bogged down due to the clash between partisans whose slogans (or battle cries) are:

• Evolution is a theory, not a fact
• Evolution is a fact

Parsing these sentences is a lot of trouble and involves unsnarling terms which are used with multiple meanings