Darwin Doubted

[jwu]

A "scientific theory" is fundamentally different than the spoken language term "theory"

A spoken language theory is rather what a hypothesis is in science. It's an good idea how something might work, but it yet has to be tested to see if it holds water.

A scientific theory is a hypothesis that has passed all tests (and lots of them) and is capable of accounting for the things it is supposed to explain, while nothing may contradict it.

Note that scientific theories and scientific laws are entirely different things. Laws explain how the universe behaves/is, theories explain why it behaves or is that way. So a theory cannot be "promoted" to law, while exactly that being possible is a common misconsception.

jwu

 

[notto]

http://wilstar.com/theories.htm

Some scientific theories include the theory of evolution, the theory of relativity, and the quantum theory. All of these theories are well documented and proved beyond reasonable doubt. Yet scientists continue to tinker with the component hypotheses of each theory in an attempt to make them more elegant and concise, or to make them more all-encompassing. Theories can be tweaked, but they are seldom, if ever, entirely replaced.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

Can someone please explain to me what 'theory' means, i was under the impression that it is something without fact??

science uses the same terms as common language but gives them a specific meaning.

there are two words used in science: conjecture and theory that are used in very specific ways. conjecture is without supporting data, or without sufficient supporting data, think of it as an educated question requiring work to support it yet.

theory is the word to label these complexes of data and supporting ideas. it can be really big like ToE or small like the theory that prions cause mad cow disease. What is important is that theories are on their way to gaining enough support so that those who work with them are confident that they are true. Think of it as 'proving beyond a reasonable doubt' standard in western law. Theories, those generally accepted and in use, are proven beyond a reasonable doubt, not certain, not for sure, just enough to be useful, accepted and well founded.

in common parlance, theory means unproven, in science the term is conjecture.

 

[gluadys]

Can someone please explain to me what 'theory' means, i was under the impression that it is something without fact??

What a theory does is explain facts.

Consider the theory of gravity.

The fact is that things fall down. Not up.

Why do they fall down? The theory of gravity explains this.

Another thing good theories do is tie different facts together with a single explanation.

It is a fact the moon orbits the earth. And the earth and other planets orbit the sun.

Why? The theory of gravity explains this too.

So the same theory explains why a tossed ball will fall back to earth and the orbits of planets and satellites.

Gravity also explains the formation of stars.

All this explanation does not turn the theory of gravity into a fact. All along it is an explanation for facts like falling objects, planetary orbits and star formation.

Now here is the funny part. We still don't know exactly what gravity is or how it works. We can describe what happens in a gravitional field. We can measure its effect and call it the law of gravity. But we still don't really know much about gravity itself.

The theory of evolution explains thousands of biological facts, and unlike gravity, we have a pretty good idea of how it works.

 

[mikeynov]

I agree. Evolution doesn't predict even ONE law of the universe.

How can you be this dense? How many times do people have to explain to you what evolution is?

Evolution is a biological theory that explains the present and past biodiversity of our planet. How the h-e-double-hockey-sticks do you go from that to 'predicting laws of the universe?'

 

[Avtoritet]

Some scientific theories include the theory of evolution, the theory of relativity, and the quantum theory. All of these theories are well documented and proved beyond reasonable doubt.

see this thread http://www.christianforums.com/t1272140-lets-mourn-over-the-death-of-darwin-and-darwinism.htm