[JRobertson]

Your bias is showing through quite heavily, that may contribute as much to your lack of winning on "religious turf" as your arguments do. Yes, there are plenty of the believers that draw a hard line, but by stereotyping you potentially alienate other believers that would otherwise gladly contribute to the discussion.

There are many Christians that believe in evolution. There are many that believe in creation and many that believe in a hybrid of the two.

I consider myself a "True Christian", and yet I am not a die-hard fundamentalists. I believe that Someone got this whole party started, but I don't believe there are enough facts to establish exactly how much they interacted with this thing we call earth, life, and the universe.

If there is a God, then he would have to know all the science, even the science we don't know, sort of like the ultimate hacker. So he sets up his lab (the universe) aligns all the conditions and drops his sample into the petri dish (earth). I believe that much. The question is, how much did he have to interact with the petri dish after that? Did he have to add food? or zap things with lasers? Did he have to move the dish to a different light source at some point? If creation was setting up the lab and getting things started did he not still create this world?

Note: I don't think we're all just one big science experiment. But if God is all knowing (which is fairly universally accepted among the religious) then he would know science. But at the same time, are our scientists not working towards artificial life? Cold fusion? The physics behind orbits and the like? If we had all the resources and technology we needed would we not have scientists that would want to "move a planet" and try to start life?

Either way, now you have two people, one non religious, and one believer who have a common scientific understanding to start from: The theory of evolution is completely possible and we can work together to test, re-test, prove and improve the theory until it becomes fact or is disproved.

TLDR; Your stereo types and blanket dismissive statements can do as much to hinder the science you're trying to promote as the firm line that many of your opponents draw on this topic. You'll meet more success looking for and arguing to a common ground and then building from there.

[splawn]

IMO, your point about common ground is lost when you misuse the word "theory", which sadly (because I agree with what I think you were trying to say), gives his point more strength.

edit: oops, forgot to show you what i mean, read the first sentence of this. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory

[JRobertson]

I don't think I misused the word theory. I meant it as "not 100% fact". Even a scientific theory is not a fact.

"If only one fossil was to be found in the strata where it did not belong it would automatically disprove evolution theory--there would be no saving it. If a dog was found in the Cambrian period or a bird anytime before reptiles it would disprove the theory."[1]

Since we do not yet have the technology to map all layers of the earths strata to the point where we could find all existing fossils it still remains in the realm of possibility that a fossil is found in the wrong strata and the whole theory falls down. There are other falsifiable points to the Scientific Theory as well. If there wasn't then it wouldn't be a scientific theory it would just be a belief based theory. So far it has not been falsified, but it still falsifiable.

Maybe my word use was a little off, but I believe my intent remains intact. Anyone who says evolution is a fact is doing so on faith and doesn't understand or accept that their are still falsifiable points left that could happen. Yes, it's well past theory and into Scientific theory, but it's still a theory.

[1]-http://freethinkerperspective.blogspot.com/2012/07/is-darwin...

[splawn]

I generally don't see pro-science people making the argument that evolution is an unfalsifiable 100% fact. I agree with you that such arguments are within the domain of faith. Perhaps I am not being imaginative enough, but I can't think of an example of anything closer to an objective "100% fact" than a general scientific theory that survives over a hundred years of scientific scrutiny.