Thus it was written in the epistle of [log in to unmask],
>
> > All unifying ideas in science are theories, nothing is taken on faith, but
> > as a theory, we have vastly more evidence and understand far more fully the
> > processes and nature of evolution than we do for gravity.
> Perhaps this is meant to be understood solely within the context of the
> unifying ideas, but I find it impossible to proceed without givens,
> presuppositions. Even Euclid's geometry has its first principles which are
> just taken as true, and are not proven, nor can they be.

Hear, hear!

That little phrase "nothing is taken on faith" is the biggest falsehood that
science has.  Please allow me to list a few things which *are* and *must be*
taken on faith:
  1) That the whole of reality isn't some vast "virtual reality" experiment
     created by some scientist somewhere with the data being somehow fed into
     my senses.  In short, that anything beyond my own thoughts actually
     exists.  That, as I understand it, is the issue Rene Descartes was facing
     when he decided, "I have thoughts therefore I must exist."
  2) That the "physical laws" which work in one place work in another.
  3) That the "physical laws" which work now have always worked in the same
     fashion--at least at some high enough level that we can derive what was
     from what is.
  4) Likewise with the "laws of reason".
  5) That human reason is, given enough time, capable of understanding
     everything.

there are others, I'm sure, but one more is worth mentioning:

  6) That there is nothing which ever happened in the Cosmos which involved
     the action of someone or something outside it.  This is an article of
     faith which grows fairly naturally out of the desire to explore why things
     are the way they are, since "Because God made it that way" is neither
     provable "scientifically" nor likely to breed further inquiry.
     The scientist starts with the assumption that God, if He exists, was not
     involved.  At no point is he forced to "add God back into the equation"
     because of #5 above--there is nothing which is beyond the reach of reason.
     He never has to say, "that's a miracle" because he comes to the question
     with the understanding that there are no miracles and that eventually
     we'll figure it all out.

Please don't take this as somehow insulting the beliefs of Wirt or the other
highly-intelligent, deep-thinking evolutionists.  Likewise, it is not meant as
an attack on someone else's belief system.  I have no desire to denigrate
anyone's faith.  This is strictly an amateur mathematician's sensitivity to the
need to state the assumptions.

Ted
--
Ted Ashton ([log in to unmask]), Info Sys, Southern Adventist University
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If we possessed a thorough knowledge of all the parts of the seed of any
animal (e.g. man), we could from that alone, by reasons entirely
mathematical and certain, deduce the whole conformation and figure of each
of its members, and, conversely if we knew several peculiarities of this
conformation, we would from those deduce the nature of its seed.
                                        -- Descartes, Rene (1596-1650)
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         Deep thoughts to be found at http://www.southern.edu/~ashted