I dunno, I don't blame people for not understanding what is meant by the word "theory." Illuminatus says that anyone remotely educated knows perfectly well what one is, but after getting my education in physics and working for a few years in the lab, it isn't nearly so clear to me.
For one thing, scientists use the word for things that are very different. Evolutionary theory and the theory of relativity are not the same type of thing, in any scientific sense. The types of predictions made by condensed matter theory and drive theory in psychology aren't even remotely similar. Neither is the manner in which they were proposed, or the types of experiments done to verify them.
I'm not just talking about cosmetic differences. I'm talking about the meaning of what is meant by a "prediction," which is at the heart of science. There are many cases in modern science where all the theory does is guide a person to a branch of possibilities, while there are other cases where the theory produces testable observables.
String theory is obviously at the stupid end of that spectrum, but is a huge variety of things in between that are paired with the word "theory" that don't strike me as being the same at all. The urge to lump them together seems to me to be more a reflection of the need for scientific orthodoxy and myth than any useful paradigm for describing what the things are.
For one thing, scientists use the word for things that are very different. Evolutionary theory and the theory of relativity are not the same type of thing, in any scientific sense. The types of predictions made by condensed matter theory and drive theory in psychology aren't even remotely similar. Neither is the manner in which they were proposed, or the types of experiments done to verify them.
I'm not just talking about cosmetic differences. I'm talking about the meaning of what is meant by a "prediction," which is at the heart of science. There are many cases in modern science where all the theory does is guide a person to a branch of possibilities, while there are other cases where the theory produces testable observables.
String theory is obviously at the stupid end of that spectrum, but is a huge variety of things in between that are paired with the word "theory" that don't strike me as being the same at all. The urge to lump them together seems to me to be more a reflection of the need for scientific orthodoxy and myth than any useful paradigm for describing what the things are.
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