Sunday 27 December 2009

Theory?

I've always held strong feelings about this, and one of the commenters brought it up again. I'll state this very clearly; A theory is a hypothesis based on data gathered from experiments, not a random guess or ejaculation.

1. This is most often abused by intelligent design advocates when stating that their alternate "theory" should be taught alongside a legitimate scientific theory. Their claim has no clear basis in fact or data to directly support their opinion. Any evidence they show is not to support their thought, but to undermine a tested theory. Much more experimentation must be done and much much more data must be gathered for their thoughts to be anything more than a creation myth.

2. The nebulous nature of the definition of the word is also used against evolution, as many use the fact that is considered a theory to suggest that scientists are unsure about its legitimacy. The heliocentric view of the universe is a theory, and so is the theory of relativity and Newton's gravitational laws. This argument is based on the modern use of the word, discussed in #3, and has little to no validity, as it tries to induce doubt in the uncertain, and does nothing to support their claims.

3. I think that the main problem with this situation is the modern use of this word by media and local science representatives, such as teachers in middle schools. The media damages the specific meaning of the word by describing baseless, random thoughts like creationism and panspermia (The thought that aliens created the Earth) as "radical theories", a phrase that reinforces the thought that any idea thrown out from purely irrational beliefs will be considered a theory by the public. Another thing is science projects.They show people, especially children, that any guess, regardless of presence of data, can be shown as a theory, and that if a test matches that guess, that guess is true. The layout of science projects is totally different from the true scientific method. A real theory starts as a hypothesis based on observation, and goes through rigorous testing, and then a theory can be made from that data, only to be tested even more thoroughly to even keep that status.

I, no matter how strongly I feel about this, still find myself using the word in the wrong way, and that really isn't the point. The point is to advise people to respect the significance of the word and the truth it implies, and to think twice before tossing it around.

No comments:

Post a Comment