Creationist in Peterborough doesn't know what he's talking about.

The Peterborough Examiner has a letter to the editor that anyone halfway educated on the subject would be embarrassed by.

Here are the relevant bits interspersed with my commentary:

However, my concern centres on his treatment of the theory of evolution. It is only a theory. He tells it as a fact. Never have the concepts largely developed by Charles Darwin in the mid-19th century been proven by "hard " science.

Sigh. Only a theory. Poor Dr Dyer is unaware that science, hard or "hard" or otherwise, has proven nothing.
From Sci Am (quotes from sources other than Dr Dyer's letter are in red):

Part of the problem is that the word "theory" means something very different in lay language than it does in science: A scientific theory is an explanation of some aspect of the natural world that has been substantiated through repeated experiments or testing. But to the average Jane or Joe, a theory is just an idea that lives in someone's head, rather than an explanation rooted in experiment and testing.

The thing is, there is plenty of support for evolution, from fossils to the nested hierarchies of the Linnaeus classification system, to ERVS to replicated errors demonstrating a common ancestor.

In 1989 the mighty Soviet Union crashed into rubble. Soon the Deputy Minister of Education for all of Russia travelled to California to attend a conference of Christian educators. He spoke to the assembly, and I quote, "For 70 years we have shut God out of our country and it has done us great harm.

Blindly equating evolution with atheism, Dyer imagines that shutting God out of Russia is relevant to the discussion of evolution. Obviously, he is unaware of Lysenkoism, a pseudoscientific belief about biology that Russians followed instead of evolution. From the Wikipedia link above:

The pseudo-scientific ideas of Lysenkoism assumed the heritability of acquired characteristics.[1] Lysenko's theory rejected Mendelian inheritance and the concept of the "gene"; it departed from Darwinian evolutionary theory by rejecting natural selection.[2] Proponents falsely claimed to have discovered, among many other things, that rye could transform into wheat and wheat into barley, that weeds could spontaneously transmute into food grains, and that "natural cooperation" was observed in nature as opposed to "natural selection".[2] Lysenkoism promised extraordinary advances in breeding and in agriculture that never came about.
Joseph Stalin supported the campaign. More than 3,000 mainstream biologists were sent to prison, fired,[3] and others were executed as part of a campaign instigated by Lysenko to suppress his scientific opponents

He is also unaware that many Christians accept evolution as the explanation for the diversity of life on Earth. The Clergy Project Letter has more than 13,000 signatures of American active Christian clergyfolk who accept evolution.

I was invited into a `history classroom and met the older professor. He commented, " I understand you are a Christian." When I affirmed that I was, he pointed to his desk, and declared, "That is one of my text books. It was the Bible! In a Russian public high school the teacher held to the truths of the Bible as authoritative for his history lesson!

I will now step away from exclusively discussing evolution and dip into politics.  Russia is not a good place. It was not before 1989 and it is not now. I would not want to associate Christianity with the way Russia currently works.

I am saddened that such unproven assumptions are given to our generation and labelling as Truth. In the words of the Russian educator, "We must bring God back, and we must begin with our youth."
Dr. Stanley R. Dyer
Peterborough

It sure seems like we should first start with educating Dr Dyer on the subject he tries to argue so he doesn't make himself and all Creationists look foolish.

Don't say Darwin when you mean Evolution

Don't say Darwin unless you mean it. Don't say theory when you mean historical fact. And don't say you believe in evolution, when you mean you accept it on the basis of the evidence.

Paul Braterman explains why here.

definition of a theory

Here is a common creationist definition, although a little more honest than some:

After all, evolution is a theory, and in the dictionary I have, it states that a theory, among other things, is a hypothesis, a guess, a conjecture, a speculative opinion — hardly absolute fact.

From Craig Kappel

The unusual honesty is in the phrase, "among other things".  Let's look at two online dictionaries:

Merriam Webster:(Click to enlarge - or follow the link)

The scientific definition is not so clear at Merriam Webster and it could be the first or fifth one in the list.

Dictionary.com: (ditto)

Here, the scientific definition is the first one.

Even Google's own definition service puts the  scientific meaning first:

The word 'theory' can be a synonym for 'guess' or 'conjecture' or 'opinion' but it sure seems dishonest when the relevant definition is there and deliberately skipped over.

Added Sept 24: a nice graphic from York Daily Record.  I hamfistedly added an extra line and some text to it.

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Added later on Sept 24: At Science Alert, a video explaining the difference between hypothesis, theory, fact and law.
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Added later, On Aug 23, 2016, Piers Sellers on climate change and Theory:

Fundamentally, a theory in science is not just a whim or an opinion; it is a logical construct of how we think something works, generally agreed upon by scientists and always in agreement with the available observations. A good example is Isaac Newton’s theory of gravitation, which says that every physical object in the universe exerts a gravity force field around itself, with the strength of that field depending on its mass. The theory—one simple equation—does a superb job of explaining our observations of how planets orbit around the sun, and was more than good enough to make the calculations we needed to send spacecraft to the moon and elsewhere. Einstein improved on Newton’s theory when it comes to large-scale astronomical phenomena, but, for everyday engineering use, Newton’s physics works perfectly well, even though it is more than three hundred years old.

via pharyngula.

Your own opinions, not your own facts

UPDATE: Brean has deleted our comment thread.  I cannot say if this post is one-sided or biased but there is no longer an original record to refer back to.
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It takes more #faith to believe in #evolution than it does in #creation. http://t.co/8xojMIglNf
— Jacy Brean (@JacyBrean) April 21, 2015

I followed the link Brean provided and we had a cordial discussion in the comments of the blog post.

 Brean does not believe that there is enough evidence for Evolution.  I disagree but this is not my concern in this blog post.  My concern is the use of facts.

From the main post

  Even if it were possible for a human male to evolve, what are the chances of a female counterpart evolving at the same time in order for them to reproduce? 

The thing is, if Brean understood the theory, Brean would know this is not an issue.  Evolution works (or doesn't in Brean's view) on populations, not individuals.  My main rebuttal to this is at the bottom of the quoted sections.

From our discussion in the comments:

 I may maintain that there is not - and never has been - any observable evidence to support what has only ever been a theory, and a very flimsy one at that.

Brean seems unaware that although 'theory' is used in detective shows as 'guess', in science it is not. Evolution is (or isn't) a theory but it isn't "only" a theory.  To explain by example, let's look at gravity. There is a law of gravity.  There is no theory of gravity.  We know gravity works and understand that it works but we have no consensus on why it works.  The explanation is missing.  The theory is missing.
The same from Study.com

Outside of science, the definition of a theory is a thought that may or may not be true. In the science community, a scientific theory is defined as a hypothesis or a group of hypotheses about some phenomena that have been supported through research using the scientific method.

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 Another huge reason why I could never accept evolution is that it offers no hope for the future and no means to solve our problems in the here and now.
I do appreciate your taking the time to respond and respect, not only your views but also your right to express them.
Best regards

The theory of evolution offers hope for the future in the exact same way Germ Theory does. The exact same way the Particle Theory of light does. Heliocentric Theory, Cell theory... None of these offer or take hope away.  To offer a cliche, science is a tool and any tool can be used for good or ill. We cannot say that TNT or dynamite doesn't exist because we don't like bombs or missiles. We can't argue against nuclear physics because of the harm radioactivity can cause.
I left the second sentence in the quote to offer evidence that Brean was gracious and polite throughout.  I am frustrated by Brean's views but not by the tone they were given.

All my research an personal observation leads me to the only possible conclusion.
I have discussed the matter with various people, including scientists of many disciplines. None of them know how life began, or how life triggered the tiniest organism into being - and you are no exception.

Brean is a writer and presumably capable of research.  Brean claims to have discussed the subject with many scientists.  Yet, in asking when males vs females evolve we see that Brean doesn't know what evolution actually states.  Brean is unaware of the proper usage of the term 'theory'.  Brean specifically links lack of acceptance of the theory with its consequences.

In our discussion, I made a similar mistake.  In reading the timeworn attacks on evolution, I imagined I was speaking to a follower of Ken Ham's AIG Young Earth Creationism and made an argument based on that assumption.  Brean corrected me on my error and we moved on.  In an article promoting his book Intuition Pumps, Dennett stated that the way to properly argue a point was to do enough research to be able to describe the opponents position so well and clearly the opponent would thank him.  I jumped to an assumption and was corrected.  We see that Brean didn't understand the theory of evolution even while arguing against it.  Weinersmith seems correct when he said:

The more I read from creationists, the more I think they're not anti-evolution. They're anti-some crazy version of it their pastor taught.
— Zach Weinersmith (@ZachWeiner) April 4, 2012

I don't know if anyone actually reads this blog but I wonder at the etiquette of blog post argument. Brean had posted an opinion on the blog and promoted a link to it on Twitter so I think my decision to respond was not invasive. I am less comfortable about giving the link to the post at the top of my post. We each made three comments (one of mine was long and had to be broken into two. It really wasn't that long and I was surprised that I had to do that) with Brean politely closing the discussion down.  I have chosen not to post further there.  On another of my blogs, I had a blog post with a long comment discussion and stated that it was done.  I did not lock down comments and someone chose to keep commenting. There is breach of etiquette and there is rudeness ( and worse, is online rudeness) and I feel that commenter crossed a weak line in choosing to continue with comments.  I hope I have not.

Why the theory of Intelligent Design is so hard to rebut.

It is because there is no clear theory of ID. John Pieret of Thought in a Haystack posted an interesting bit recently. Well, he posted more than a bit, but here is the bare minimum that I that describes his point.  I, on the other hand, am posting only a bit, so you can follow the link for more.

The many interesting examples that dominate the ID discussion—the little tail on the bacterium, our eyes or our blood-clotting mechanism, the explosion of new life-forms in the Cambrian period—are just snapshots of things in nature. They are not "evidence" for anything and won't be until the ID theorists develop a theory of how their "designer" works. Once they provide a well-articulated version of their central claim, we can decide whether or not our eyes—or our tails— support their theory.

Darwin knew this: 

About thirty years ago there was much talk that geologists ought only to observe and not theorise; and I well remember some one saying that at this rate a man might as well go into a gravel-pit and count the pebbles and describe the colours. How odd it is that anyone should not see that all observation must be for or against some view if it is to be of any service!

Pieret is quoting Karl Giberson who is describing a debate he had with Stephen Meyer.