Lighter says: At a more sophisticated level, it's [the theory of relativity] still a "theory" because there are loose ends that have not yet been definitively tied up: most notably how it ties in with quantum mechanics.

And that is exactly my point. I think that it's safe to say that evolution has generally been accepted as fact for the better part of a hundred years. Sure, there are a few flat-earth people who don't accept the idea of evolution, but what's the use in getting all hot and bothered about them?

I homeschooled my stepson through high school a few years ago, and I'm proud to say he graduated with honors from the Physics Department of the University of California at Davis, and he's now a graduate student. But I taught him General Science, and we both really enjoyed it. I was amazed at how many things there were in the textbook, that had not been known when I graduated from college in 1970. The most significant thing was plate tectonics, but there were so many other things that were completely beyond imagination in 1970. The same will be true in another 40 years - what we know now, will be no big deal 40 years from now.

So, what bothers me in many of the posts above, is that they are so absolutist and combative, not to mention simplistic. What we have left to learn, is infinite. Darwin published his On the Origin of Species in 1859. We've built on that, and we know a whole lot more than Darwin's primitive thoughts. Forty years from now, humankind will know a vast amount more, and our current thinking will be seen as primitive.

Don't hold onto anything as absolute - there is far more yet to be explored, so why waste your time trying to convert fundamentalists? If I may expand on what I said before, some of you sound like Jehovah's Witnesses....trying to convert a Mormon. Why bother?

-Joe-