Sorry that I wasn't precise here, I was trying to present the spirit of what it takes for a statement to go from hypothesis to theory in science practice. Also, none of the definitions you provide were really in the realm of what scientific theory represents, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory for a solid explanation.
Also, I was trying to convey some of the difference between theory from hypothesis (observation) and from conjecture (swag), which often seems to be the source of much of creationist argument and it's difference from science.
It's been evident to me for some time, that creationism is born from fear of mature personal responsibility. By this I mean that; in order to support the myth that there is some higher power than yourself (which I do buy), which has paternal/maternal responsibility over you (which is crap), there is a requirement that the believer take in wholesale all of the associated claptrap that comes with it, namely the creation myth. When you tie that with the need to control people for your aggrandizement, you get the enormous amount of spew that comes from that camp.
The reality is that evolution is a fact, we can see it happening everyday, as viruses and bacteria become resistant or mutate into new species in response to their environment (that's what biological evolution is). Sometimes I think the problem is one of definition; in astronomy, evolution is the process of stars progressing from birth through death, but in biology the term is not the same. Darwin actually avoided this term, calling it natural selection, as he knew what evolution actually meant.
Any other argument in scientific literature on the subject is only about mechanism, whether it's Darwinian, or Cataclysm theory or whatever. These are all theory, which is not the colloquial meaning (like "guess"), but the scientific definition which is more like; we're 99.9% sure, we just need to tweak the last 0.1%.
I really hope these people grow up someday, but I likely won't happen anytime soon.
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Sorry that I wasn't precise here, I was trying to present the spirit of what it takes for a statement to go from hypothesis to theory in science practice. Also, none of the definitions you provide were really in the realm of what scientific theory represents, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory for a solid explanation.
Also, I was trying to convey some of the difference between theory from hypothesis (observation) and from conjecture (swag), which often seems to be the source of much of creationist argument and it's difference from science.
It's been evident to me for some time, that creationism is born from fear of mature personal responsibility. By this I mean that; in order to support the myth that there is some higher power than yourself (which I do buy), which has paternal/maternal responsibility over you (which is crap), there is a requirement that the believer take in wholesale all of the associated claptrap that comes with it, namely the creation myth. When you tie that with the need to control people for your aggrandizement, you get the enormous amount of spew that comes from that camp.
The reality is that evolution is a fact, we can see it happening everyday, as viruses and bacteria become resistant or mutate into new species in response to their environment (that's what biological evolution is). Sometimes I think the problem is one of definition; in astronomy, evolution is the process of stars progressing from birth through death, but in biology the term is not the same. Darwin actually avoided this term, calling it natural selection, as he knew what evolution actually meant.
Any other argument in scientific literature on the subject is only about mechanism, whether it's Darwinian, or Cataclysm theory or whatever. These are all theory, which is not the colloquial meaning (like "guess"), but the scientific definition which is more like; we're 99.9% sure, we just need to tweak the last 0.1%.
I really hope these people grow up someday, but I likely won't happen anytime soon.