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Author Topic:   What is a Theory?
platypus
Member (Idle past 5753 days)
Posts: 139
Joined: 11-12-2006


Message 1 of 2 (464028)
04-22-2008 10:37 PM


I've been having this problem lately with scientific theores. It's been very evident the way that people thrown around the term from this recent thread The Importance of the First Amendment.
BlueJay writes:
The word "theory" is held in very high esteem in science: there is no higher office to which a scientific concept can be promoted.
Rahvin writes:
That evolution occurs is an observed fact. The Theory of Evolution is the model used to describe the mechanism by which evolution happens - that is, genetic mutations and genetic drift guided by natural selection.
Its the same as gravity. That gravity exists is an observed fact. The Theory of Gravity is the model we use to explain the mechanism by which gravity functions.
I agree, but there can be plenty of theories, or explanation of observed facts, which are not scientifically solid. Like the Metabolic Theory of Ecology which can explain a large diversity of fact, but is highly disputed and considered wrong by a large number of scientists. Or String Theory which has no supporting evidence, but is a nice idea striving towards unification theory. And Einstein developed the Theory of General Relativity to explain some wierd phenomena about light, not to explain a diversity of scientific facts. In fact, true verification for the theory came after its introduction. This is in direct contrast to this sort of statement:
BlueJay writes:
Science generally uses part of the first definition, thus: "A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena which has been repeatedly tested and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena." Basically, theories are verified by their abilities to pass repeated testing and by their abilities to successfully predict solutions to problems or answers to questions. Scientists believe them because they work very well.
I don't think this is Bluejay's fault, I think this is generally the defintion scientists like to give for theories, I just don't think it's as clear cut as we'd like it to be.
Further thought
Heliocentric Theory, cell theory and the theory of plate tectonics are really just facts about the world, not big explanations for diverse facts.
Giant Impact Theory explains how the moon formed, but was only recently accepted as the dominant theory and still suffers criticism
circuit theory, signal theory, and antenna theory which are all descriptions of how to do things, rather than explanations of data, but they're engineering theories (is that different from scientific?).
And then there's all those math theories that are something else entirely, which I'd probably consider non-scientific but still use the word theory.
My point is the word theory is not as sacred or as clear in science as we make it out to be.
Just for clarification, my point is not that evolution is not valid, but that we should stop harping on about how it is this grand theory in science because theory is a confusing topic in science.
Here's two more links for scientific theories in wikipedia:
Theory - Wikipedia
Theory - Wikipedia

You hear evolutionist says we are descedant from apes and monkees. Sure, but that's not the point. All of life is related, not just human's with monkees. If you hug a tree, you're hugging a relative, a very distant relative, but a relative nonetheless." Dr. Joan Roughgarden in Evolution and Christian Faith

AdminNosy
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Message 2 of 2 (464036)
04-23-2008 1:04 AM


Thread copied to the What is a Theory? thread in the Is It Science? forum, this copy of the thread has been closed.

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