The title is from a book, Natural Theology (1802), by William Paley. He describes a man walking across a heath (uncultivated area). He sees a rock, and may imagine that it has always been there. But if he sees a watch, he knows that watches have not always existed, therefore there must have been a watch Maker. This leads to what has since been tagged "intelligent design."
The authors [and I] do not agree with this. They note two very different uses of the word "theory." One is a misleading equivalence with "hypothesis," which is a question or statement proposed for testing, to see if it can be falsified, that is, proven to be false. The other is an idea about which considerable evidence has accumulated, which has not been falsified. It may not have been nailed down in all particulars, but a heavy preponderance of evidence says that it is true.
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