Disagreements between creationists and evolutionary theorists
have directed attention to a wide variety of issues that deserve
philosophical scrutiny. In particular, in legal and educational
contexts, the creation/evolution debate has contributed to a
widespread uncertainty about whether to depict evolution as
"fact" or "theory," or perhaps as both. I propose that a
distinction between data and phenomena can clarify how,
depending upon context, the term "evolution" can refer either to
a complex fact or to an explanatory theory. Examples of the
dispute are easy to find. Both the 1981 Arkansas and 1986
Louisiana "balanced treatment" bills included references to the
allegedly nonfactual nature of evolution. The Arkansas bill
stated as one of its Legislative findings of fact that:
Evolution-science is not an unquestionable fact of science,
because evolution cannot be experimentally observed, fully
verified, or logically falsified, and because evolution-science
is not accepted by some scientists. Michael Ruse was