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Originally Posted by MattO
Forget about the creation stuff and just read the bits about "THEORY" again:
A theory (as the word is used by scientists) is a detailed description of some facet of the universe's workings that is based on long observation and, where possible, experiment. It is the result of careful reasoning from these observations and experiments that has survived the critical study of scientists generally.
For example, we have the description of the cellular nature of living organisms (the "cell theory"); of objects attracting each other according to fixed rule (the "theory of gravitation"); of energy behaving in discrete bits (the "quantum theory"); of light traveling through a vacuum at a fixed measurable velocity (the "theory of relativity"), and so on.
All are theories; all are firmly founded; all are accepted as valid descriptions of this or that aspect of the universe. They are neither guesses nor speculations. And no theory is better founded, more closely examined, more critically argued and more thoroughly accepted, than the theory of evolution. If it is "only" a theory, that is all it has to be.
-Asimov
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Remember that every theory including all of those that were wrong was founded in observed events ("facts").
The smallest particle of matter was theorized to be an electron because it was the smallest particle we observed until a cyclatron smashed electrons into quarks. (allowing up to propose and prove the existance of particle with the quark structure of an electron but the opposite polarity --- positrons). Had someone not questioned the assumption we would never have known about anti-matter.