"Proof" in the mathematical sense is a straw man in these arguments.  What
I mean is, by saying there's no "proof" for a particular claim or theory
sounds like you're saying that theory or claim is completely unsupported,
when in reality *almost nothing* we know can be "proven" in the strict
sense.  Think about it - I can't even prove that I'm actually sitting here
at a computer - I could conceivably be a brain in a box being fed images
that make me think I'm sitting in a chair writing e-mail.  If I'm not even
sure (in the sense of able to prove)  that the external world is real then I
certainly can't prove or disprove evolution.

There is a tremendous amount of evidence supporting human evolution, but
it's not provable any more than it is provable that anybody outside your own
consciousness is even real.  We should never ask for hypotheses like
evolution to be proven, but rather to be supported, and then we must
recognize that most scientific theories are open to be overturned at some
point in the future.  Aliens could come down tomorrow and provide
overwhelming evidence that they planted early humans here, and that we were
designed by them and did not, in fact, evolve.  However, until those aliens
show up, denying the massive evidence supporting human evolution is either a
case of somebody being willfully ignorant or hiding a theological stance
behind scientific - sounding (but unscientific) arguments.



>
> Meanwhile, there is plenty of evidence for human evolution.  It may not
> amount to *proof*, but of course evidence and proof are not the same
> thing.  Proof is seldom, if ever, available for any scientific hypothesis.
> That doesn't stand in the way of there being evidence for the hypothesis.
>
> Todd Moody
>



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