dnnydllr, the basic problem here (as I see it) is that your school hasn't taught you what science is and how it works. Nothing new there. My rural school didn't either, and I grew up in the 60's when they were really pushing science education in the US. Googling "scientific method for kids" gives lots of useful results.
But the general way it works is: Start with an idea. Think of a way to test whether your idea is true. Perform the experiment. Publish your results (whether positive or negative). Others read your results and get ideas for tests of their own, whether they agree with you or not.
Some tests are easy to understand and perform. Others are near-impossible for anyone but another scientist in the same field to grasp.
In evolution and many other fields, the "tests" have to be predictions about what may be found in the future: So, if birds evolved from dinosaurs, then someday we may find a fossil of a halfway-bird-dino, with this list of characteristics... Okay, we found one of those last year so we add a point to the "birds evolved from dinosaurs" idea. When that idea scores enough points (thru successful predictions ONLY), they'll start calling it a theory, meaning "the evidence we have so far strongly points this way".
We use the scientific method simply because it's the only way we've found to learn about our universe THAT WORKS. Astrology, religion, reading entrails, using human intuition and a thousand other methods for finding answers all failed. Once we learned to keep records of our experiments, all were pretty quickly seen to be useless for predicting...except science.
Your school keeps trying to ram "evolution" down your throat, but obviously isn't giving you enough data to convince you. There are easily a hundred thousand successful predictions (numbers pulled from my rear end) whose answers point towards evolution, and maybe a hundred where we don't see how evolution fits. Those hundred-ish cases are ones where we don't know which scientist's idea is correct yet, if any (how did wings develop?). When we get enough data, I predict the answer is still going to be "they evolved"; we just don't know exactly how yet.
But to disbelieve in evolution altogether because of a hundred unanswered questions, you have to throw away a thousand times as much data supporting it. Thousands of scientists have worked 150 years to challenge/confirm/deny/refine Darwin's conclusions, and evolution (specifically "natural selection") is where the overwhelming majority of the data points us.
Over time we learn things, but there is never certainty. We all would like certainty. I would too. But the point of science is to draw the best conclusions we can from the evidence we have, disregarding our gut feelings. Gut feelings, political pressure and big egos do get in the way, of course. But when tests are done over and over by many different researchers, these things get averaged out. That's happening now in the US in the global warming arguments. In another 10 years, we'll have enough data to have some real answers, rather than just lots of frightening maybes. Science marches onward! (and as it marches it's noisy, makes an unpleasant neighbor, and often leaves a mess behind for the engineers to clean up)
You think evolution and the big bang are bad, wait'll you get to particle physics. The stuff happening on the sub-sub-subatomic level makes absolutely no sense, except as a mathematical game. However, the math keeps predicting things like, "if you do X you'll see particle Y appear out of nowhere and then vanish", and it works. I am waaaay uncomfortable with some of the results (like "spooky action at a distance"), but whoever's in-charge of the universe neglected to hire me as a design consultant.
But the general way it works is: Start with an idea. Think of a way to test whether your idea is true. Perform the experiment. Publish your results (whether positive or negative). Others read your results and get ideas for tests of their own, whether they agree with you or not.
Some tests are easy to understand and perform. Others are near-impossible for anyone but another scientist in the same field to grasp.
In evolution and many other fields, the "tests" have to be predictions about what may be found in the future: So, if birds evolved from dinosaurs, then someday we may find a fossil of a halfway-bird-dino, with this list of characteristics... Okay, we found one of those last year so we add a point to the "birds evolved from dinosaurs" idea. When that idea scores enough points (thru successful predictions ONLY), they'll start calling it a theory, meaning "the evidence we have so far strongly points this way".
We use the scientific method simply because it's the only way we've found to learn about our universe THAT WORKS. Astrology, religion, reading entrails, using human intuition and a thousand other methods for finding answers all failed. Once we learned to keep records of our experiments, all were pretty quickly seen to be useless for predicting...except science.
Your school keeps trying to ram "evolution" down your throat, but obviously isn't giving you enough data to convince you. There are easily a hundred thousand successful predictions (numbers pulled from my rear end) whose answers point towards evolution, and maybe a hundred where we don't see how evolution fits. Those hundred-ish cases are ones where we don't know which scientist's idea is correct yet, if any (how did wings develop?). When we get enough data, I predict the answer is still going to be "they evolved"; we just don't know exactly how yet.
But to disbelieve in evolution altogether because of a hundred unanswered questions, you have to throw away a thousand times as much data supporting it. Thousands of scientists have worked 150 years to challenge/confirm/deny/refine Darwin's conclusions, and evolution (specifically "natural selection") is where the overwhelming majority of the data points us.
Over time we learn things, but there is never certainty. We all would like certainty. I would too. But the point of science is to draw the best conclusions we can from the evidence we have, disregarding our gut feelings. Gut feelings, political pressure and big egos do get in the way, of course. But when tests are done over and over by many different researchers, these things get averaged out. That's happening now in the US in the global warming arguments. In another 10 years, we'll have enough data to have some real answers, rather than just lots of frightening maybes. Science marches onward! (and as it marches it's noisy, makes an unpleasant neighbor, and often leaves a mess behind for the engineers to clean up)
You think evolution and the big bang are bad, wait'll you get to particle physics. The stuff happening on the sub-sub-subatomic level makes absolutely no sense, except as a mathematical game. However, the math keeps predicting things like, "if you do X you'll see particle Y appear out of nowhere and then vanish", and it works. I am waaaay uncomfortable with some of the results (like "spooky action at a distance"), but whoever's in-charge of the universe neglected to hire me as a design consultant.