Fact and theory

Dizzy has sparked off a vigorous debate about - well it started off about evolution - the scientific method.

Anyway I was attacked for declaring that

"Evolution is a FACT. End of story. The evidence for it is huge, massive AND incontrovertible"

The other person replied:

"did you take this from another debate and change MMGW to evolution ?..... that line of 'debate' is so familiar."

What is sad is that so many people mistake observations and theory.

Global warming is an observable fact - the ice caps are melting.

But what is the explanation?

The current theory is that human activity is responsible for the observable fact. The point about a scientific theory is that it is the best current explanation for a series of observations. However, theories can change with greater evidence and can even be discarded if they don't fit observations.

Examples of this abound - the fact that Newton's laws didn't account for slight discrepencies in the orbit of Mercury and that modification were required to the theory is an absolute classic.