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SithDoughnut
The Agnostic, Ignostic, Apatheistic Atheist
There really needs to be stickies at the top of the thread to deal with this kind of thing.
Simply put, something can be true and a theory at the same time. Gravity is a theory - are you saying that gravity might not exist? I advise that you look up all the definitions of the word 'theory', because the one you're using is not the one used to describe scientific theories.
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mzungu
INVICTUS
In Science the word Theory has a different meaning to the one used in common use. The Atomic Theory, The Theory of Gravity, The Theory of Evolution, all have empirical evidences to back them up.
I think you should read the definition of the word Theory when used in science and you will understand your mistake!
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This is a common and easy mistake to make. In scientific circles, a "theory" is something that is pretty much universally accepted, and is overwhelmingly the most likely possibility. Where laymen use the word "theory", scientists will use the term "hypothesis"
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Cabal
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Theories, in the scientific sense, are based on facts and are the best-supported constructs available to the scientific method. In science the word theory does NOT mean "conjecture".
Yeah, uh, capitalising the word doesn't make it a different technical term or anything
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In Science the word Theory has a different meaning to the one used in common use. The Atomic Theory, The Theory of Gravity, The Theory of Evolution, all have empirical evidences to back them up.
I think you should read the definition of the word Theory when used in science and you will understand your mistake!
Just to help put everyone on the same page:
Hypothesis - An educated guess that attempts to explain an observation or answer a question.
Theory - A hypothesis that has been tested with a significant amount of data.
Scientific law - A theory that has been tested by and is consistent with generations of data.
So, those less scientifically inclined say theory because it's an easy word to remember, but their idea of theory has been defined by scientists as hypothesis. I'm not sure which definition DCJazz was using, but I would say that the theory of evolution fits pretty well in the theory definition and probably won't be moving up any time soon. (just my opinion on that last part, but I havn't heard of anyone trying to bump it up to Law)
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Cabal
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No.
No no no no no.
No.
A law is a description of a phenomenon. It is not an attempt to explain the phenomenon. Laws do not "transcend" theories in terms of explanatory capability, and theories do not get promoted to laws.
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A scientific law is a description of a phenomenon that has been thoroughly explained. Laws may not have more explanitory capability, but they have much more reliability. And in science, reliability is far more important. It would be nearly impossible for an entire theory to become law, but when a part of a theory has enough evidence for it, it becomes a law.
( and just to let you know, those definitions weren't something I made up on the spot, they came straight from my old biology textbook, which was written by a guy with a PhD in nuclear chemistry. You can take it up with him if you really want to).
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SithDoughnut
The Agnostic, Ignostic, Apatheistic Atheist
Really? I've got a few physics books (not mine) that states that laws and theories are completely different. A law deals with what. A theory deals with why. Laws do not attempt to explain anything, nor are they necessarily about things that have been explained. They are just things that we know to be true through repeated observation.
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Cabal
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No, they're not.
Newton's LAWS were made long before any attempts to explain them were made, or indeed even could be made. Newton hadn't the first notion what gravity actually WAS, he only observed that the phenomenon followed an inverse-square law proportional to the product of the masses involved.
ETA: And I have just looked up Newton's Principia, and he uses the word "lex", which translates to law, so it's not like they were named retroactively or anything....
http://www.preces-latinae.org/thesaurus/Introductio/Principia.html
Except they aren't really more reliable - they are little more than assertions, with a large dollop of induction thrown in, neither of which are particularly keen ideas in science. Something deduced from consistent, repeated observation that also provides new predictions is generally considered to be much more reliable. To claim that lacking explanatory power is somehow scientifically more reliable, to be perfectly honest, belies a lack of understanding of how science works.
Sorry, this just doesn't happen. You could provide an example that shows otherwise, but to be honest, I don't think you can. Newton's Laws are probably the best known scientific laws, and they weren't bumped up from theories, funnily enough because no-one had done ANY research on them prior to Newton....
Bully for him. I'm doing a PhD right now in quantum optics, and I've not come across a single instance of a theory being "bumped up" to a law.
Hate to break it to you, but sometimes school textbooks are wrong....
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Interesting. Someone really needs to make a lanuage where each word only has one definition.
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J
JakeA
Guest
Take a look around you, the strong prey on the weak in all of nature, it's not a matter of whether you think it's ethical, it's reality as is.
Så enkelt är det.
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J
JakeA
Guest
Basic biology should have taught you that a scientific theory is the explanation of how it works while laws are simply the statement of observed occurances in the natural universe (hence the name "natural law").
If you want to know how it really works, just read this:
An observation is made, from this observation a scientist makes a hypothesis, it's then tested and if proven enough it evolves into a theory, this is where the falsification process begins, you actually try to disprove it by testing it, if it stands up to the tests it becomes a theory and it remains a theory as long as it does, some hypothesises are just plain wrong and never become theories, some theories are falsified and become nothing at all, but as soon as that happens, another hypothesis based on the new observations is formed and the process starts all over again.
It doesn't need to be a law to be a known occurance either, evolution is a known occurance that can be observed in real time, the theory of evolution explains how it happens, not THAT it happens, that part is well beyond any sane mans objections at this point.
That is why science works.
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vaguelyhumanoid
Daoish weirdo
Evolution makes no moral claims. It also isn't "survival of the fittest", but rather "survival of the most adaptable".
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J
Jro
Guest
Not always- some organisms can evolve to become less adaptable and more specialized.
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J
JakeA
Guest
Ehm, survival of the fittest IS survival of the most adaptable.
If you are fit for the environment you have adapted well to the environment.
And it's not really either, it's a combination of who is fit to the environment AND who is genetically most likely to produce the best offspring.
Natural selection works that way.
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J
JakeA
Guest
True, it has to do with adaptation to the current circumstances, such as environment and ability to reproduce, in many cases the two were not possible combinations, thus evolution via natural selection which caused several different variations to interbreed and in the end become the poor excuses for evolved beings that we are today.
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vaguelyhumanoid
Daoish weirdo
That's not really possible, from a linguistic perspective. If you mean where each word has an unambiguous meaning, then that's possible, but definitions are not innate to words.
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