When I was young, I learned that a hypothesis was an educated guess about some
scientific problem. Only when a good deal of supportive evidence had accumulated,
did it become a theory.
Now the word "theory" has been commonly demoted to mean a guess. "That's
only your theory!" An interesting discussion may be found in:
http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1531.htm
This would be the fallacy of equivocation.
http://www.intrepidsoftware.com/fallacy/equiv.htmRemember that next time someone pulls that "just a theory" flaff.
From Faldage's link: Equivocation
Definition:
The same word is used with two different meanings. (What are all those little scribbly things, by the way?)
Now, wait just a daggoned minute; I'd always thought that, to be equivocation, it had to be with the deliberate purpose of using a word for the other meaning. But according to this, it would be equivocation if I said, for ex., bear with me while I deal with this bear.
No, that's just homonyms. Fallacious equivocation is more like my trying to convince you logically that a piece of writing paper is a lazy dog.
Observe:
1) A piece of writing paper is an ink-lined plane;
2) An inclined plane is a slope up; and
3) A slow pup is a lazy dog.
Q. E. D.! In a manner of speaking.
P.S. I know, I know, it wasn't funny in 1948 when I heard it the first time, either...
I disagree with the web page, though I think they have a number of good points. A 'theory' is an overarching explanation. It doesn't just explain a single observation, but many different kinds of observations. The theory of gravity (despite the fact that according to Feynamn we have no mechanism for it) has immense explanatory power. It tells us why and how objects fall to Earth, what trajectory a projectile will take, how satellites can orbit planets, and how celestial objects from planets to things unimaginably bigger than mere planets orbit each other. Now *thats* a theory.
Evolution is comparable in scope, and Darwinian selection is one component of that. It tells us how every life form on Earth that ever existed is related - as a friend of mine once noted "that everything on life today is descended from the same life form." It explains a fossil record that extends back at least a billion years; it explains the existing diversity of life; why some humans are born with bony tails, and some whales are born with legs; why many things that look related physically are closely related genetically - even in baggage genes that so far as we know don't do anything. It also relates cosmic, geological, and biological evolution.
Not only are these theories, but they are "scientific theories" for the reasons pointed out in another thread - it's components are falsifiable.
However, there are some problems in terminology and one of the biggest tools of the creationists was (and is) to play on the general public ignorance about the difference between the scientific meaning of a word and the common definition of it. It's like trying to prove a mathematical theorem using the lay person's understanding of "only if."
Thought experiment: ask a random lay person how to accelerate his car and he will give you a strange stare and if he bothers to answer such a stupid question at all with anything other than a glare and a snide remark, he will look at you as if you're retarded and say, "You step on the gas." If he is familiar with algebra, he might recognize that a deceleration is just a negative acceleration and that therefore one might also step on the brake. A smartass might give clever answers like smashing into a wall or shifting weight or the like. But an engineer will say, in addition to those other answers, that a person can turn the wheel, even if he maintains the same speed. This is because acceleration is not just a change in speed - it's a change in velocity, and being a vector, velocity has two components, a direction and a speed. So a change in direction even at a constant speed, is an acceleration.
What does "order" mean? It means different things to a waitress, a lawyer, an artist, and a thermodynamicist. Take two identical bags of electron-marbles and from the marbles in one of the bags arrange them into a picture of the mona lisa and in the other glob them together into a mass. Which has greater order? Wild guess - the artist and the thermodynamicist would not give the same answer.
k
What does "order" mean? It means different things to a waitress, a lawyer, an artist, and a thermodynamicist. Take two identical bags of electron-marbles and from the marbles in one of the bags arrange them into a picture of the mona lisa and in the other glob them together into a mass. Which has greater order? Chee, how do you think of things like that, k?
I'd have to say the Mona Lisa has the greater order, because the marbles' positions would definitely not be random, whereas when they are "globbed together", they would be: each would be nestled up against whichever of numerous potential "partners" happened to be closest.
Wofa...that was terrible! <grin>
I'd have to say the Mona Lisa has the greater order, because the marbles' positions would definitely not be random,
And guess what ... you'd be right, the rightness of the answer being dependent on the context in which the question is asked.
whereas when they are "globbed together", they would be: each would be nestled up against whichever of numerous potential "partners" happened to be closest.
Indeed - but this would also be a highly unlikely (i.e. highly ordered)) arrangement for a bunch of hypothetical electron marbles.
k