TS,
Alchemy has played a significant role in the development of modern chemistry, medicine and psychology. The etymology of the modern word, chemistry, comes from the Arabic alkīmiyā (al 'the' + kīmiyā), which comes from the ancient Greek word chēmeía, meaning "black magic." Source
Cancer: The Forbidden Cures
Alchemy is referred to as a protoscience – it stands in relation to chemistry as astrology stands to astronomy. In the 18h century though rigour and discipline were applied to various such folk beliefs about the world so the earlier, comparatively crude attempts at understanding and predicting the observed universe fell away. They were replaced with fields of knowledge that gave us penicillin and the space shuttle rather than burning sage leaves and thinking the stars were torches behind windows in the sky.
Like most people I was introduced to the theory of evolution in public school. I didn't become a believer until many years later and to me, at the time, evolution seemed a more ridiculous concept than religion.
Why on earth would you (or anyone) think that?
It is interesting to me that all of my friends and family, except my mother, have always been atheists who don't believe in evolution to this day.
Really? Do they also not believe in the theories of gravity and of germs causing disease? After all, if you’re going to be an evidence-denier in one field of knowledge on what basis would you not also be an evidence-denier in any other?
I don't see what the difference between the terms evolution and theory of evolution are. To me they are the same thing.
It’s simple enough: evolution is the observation of
what happens; the ToE is the explanation of
how it happens. If it helps, think of the analogy with gravity: gravity is the observation that (say) apples fall to the ground; the theory of gravity is the explanation of
why they fall.
