# Only a theory



## Moonbat (Aug 27, 2013)

People like to quote the phrase that 'Evolution is only a theory' and that is true, but there is a lot of evidence that points to it. How much evidence does it take before it can be classed as more than a theory?

I have heard it said that Evolution is a natural law, that any system with random mutations of individuals that are under numerous pressures to survive will see evolution, but I'm not sure if that elevates evolution above 'only a theory'

Would I be right in saying that 'the world is (roughly) spherical' is only a theory, one that is backed up by visual confirmation and lots of evidence, but at one point it was a theory, and now it would be silly to think of it as 'only a theory' it is considered a fact, so what about evolution, will it ever be accepted as fact, or will it always be 'only a theory'

Personally I don't like the phrase, I think it is used by people who choose (for one reason or another) not to accept the evidence for evolution to belittle it and patronise/wind up those that consider it true.


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## Christopher A. Gray (Aug 27, 2013)

Evolution has been scientifically proven. It is not "only" a theory, it is a theory that has been proven to be fact, with empirical evidence, many times over.


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## Ursa major (Aug 27, 2013)

Strictly speaking a scientific Theory is a good deal better established than a theory as understood in everyday English, i.e. a possibility.

To quote Wiki:


> In science, the term "theory" refers to "a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world, based on a body of facts that have been repeatedly confirmed through observation and experiment."[14][15] Theories must also meet further requirements, such as the ability to make falsifiable predictions with consistent accuracy across a broad area of scientific inquiry, and production of strong evidence in favor of the theory from multiple independent sources. (See characteristics of scientific theories.)
> 
> The strength of a scientific theory is related to the diversity of phenomena it can explain, which is measured by its ability to make falsifiable predictions with respect to those phenomena. Theories are improved (or replaced by better theories) as more evidence is gathered, so that accuracy in prediction improves over time; this increased accuracy corresponds to an increase in scientific knowledge. Scientists use theories as a foundation to gain further scientific knowledge, as well as to accomplish goals such as inventing technology or curing disease.


Of course, theories can be overturned, by theories that better explain a phenomenon and which can also make falsifiable predictions.

(The word, falsifiable, is also a potential problem, given how the person in the street might interpret its meaning.)


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## Lady of Winterfell (Aug 28, 2013)

This article is about the Big Bang, but still applies to this discussion I think. One of my favorite people, Neil Degrasse Tyson, puts it this way:



> Some like to claim that the big bang is just a theory and should therefore be discounted. Don't be fooled. The beginning of the twentieth century saw the end of labeling successful theories as laws. This change of vocabulary came when new experimental domains revealed the predictions of previous physical laws to be incomplete. The change was the physicist's humble recognition that data from newer and better equipment might provide a deeper realization of the physical world. This is why pre-1900 we had Kepler's _laws_ of planetary motion, Newton's _laws_ of gravity, and the _laws_ of thermodynamics, whereas after 1900 we have Einstein's _theory_ of relativity, quantum _theory_, big bang _theory_, and so forth.


 
If you are interested in reading the rest, it can be found here.


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## Lady of Winterfell (Aug 29, 2013)

Sorry for the double post, but I actually just came across this on my Facebook feed.  The article is titled "7 Misused Science Words."



> *2. Just a theory?*
> 
> Climate-change deniers and creationists have deployed the word "theory" to cast doubt on climate change and evolution.
> 
> ...


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## Alex The G and T (Aug 29, 2013)

When I was a kid, a hundred years ago, Plate Tectonics was just a long-hair-brained "Theory."

Nowadays, I live on the Cascadia "Triple Junction" where three continental plates collide.

We get nervous when there are too few earthquakes.  It's quiet.  Too quiet.


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## ed9428 (Aug 29, 2013)

It may not be possible to prove a theory only disprove.
However if a theory still stands after adequate scrutiny at may then be considered the accepted theory. Accepted theories may still be disproven though but that is just the scientific method. 
If something is not falsifiable it is not a science it is psuedo science.


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## Mirannan (Aug 29, 2013)

As I understand it, there is a hierarchy of scientific ideas that goes roughly hypothesis < theory < law of nature.

The lay understanding of the meaning of "theory" is more like the scientific understanding of "hypothesis".

Actually, this is an illustration of a larger point. Words often mean something different when used in technical discussion from what they mean in general conversation. This is another example of context sensitivity.

As another example of terms that are precise as jargon but not so much in general conversation, consider the terms "precise" and "accurate". In general discourse their meaning is pretty well the same. To an engineer or scientist, they are not.


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## Gordian Knot (Aug 31, 2013)

Science has done itself an incredible disservice by making the change to "everything is a theory". And it has given ammunition to those whose goal is to attack scientific credibility. The proof for the theory of evolution is vast; the proof for the concept that the entire universe is a three dimensional hologram is nonexistent. 

Yet they are both called a theory. I'm not suggesting we go back to theories and laws. But we need some way to differentiate between the two. Desperately.


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## Ursa major (Aug 31, 2013)

Is the 3D hologram universe even a Hypothesis**? 


A better example might be String Theory, which I don't think meets the scientific definition of a Theory. (It may not even be a hypothesis; I don't know the strict scientific definition of that, but Wiki suggests that testing is required and sure Brian Greene mention in one of his popular sciebnce books that this might prove impossible to do.)



** - From now on, and if I rememeber to do it, I'm using *T*heory and *H*ypothesis for the scientific meanings of those words, and *t*heory and *h*ypothesis for the publicly understood meanings of those words (although I don't think hypothesis is used much); without the bolding, obviously.


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## Gordian Knot (Aug 31, 2013)

String theory is most definitely a theory. And despite the fact that it can never be tested, an awful lot of physicists seem to think it has more than a little validity. Which bothers me a great deal actually!


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## StormSeeker (Aug 31, 2013)

What I would love, is for it to be mandatory for religious folks to watch " Zeitgeist " to see what their theories in evolution and religion in general are. Of course, I am NOT argumentative and when the evolution vs religion debates comes up I stay well away. I don't want to push my opinions ( based on SCIENCE ) on others. But I would just like more people to see some other evidence or in Zetigeist's case, theories, so they can consider other possibilities.


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## Ursa major (Aug 31, 2013)

Gordian Knot said:


> String theory is most definitely a theory. And despite the fact that it can never be tested, an awful lot of physicists seem to think it has more than a little validity. Which bothers me a great deal actually!


I know it's _called_ a theory, but is it really a Theory? It isn't as if it's the only theory (note the small t) being proposed in that... er... field.


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## Gordian Knot (Sep 1, 2013)

In your phraseology I would agree it is a theory not a Theory. In actuality I have a problem with it being called either. As I understand it, a scientific theory requires two parts. That the theory can be tested, and that any positive results must be replicable by an independent source.

String theory fails both of these requirements. At this time we have no possible way to test for strings. Independent attempts are not possible when the original isn't testable in the first place.

Where the theory seems to be coming from is the math. We cannot test for a string, but we can write a coherent mathematical formula that says it is so. Or rather we can create a computer program to do the massive number crunching to "prove" the math is correct. And hence the concept is possible or probable.

I'm nowhere near smart enough to be a physicist so it could be my ignorance speaking. That said, I have a deep distrust of making statements on reality because the math looks good.

And who is smart enough to look through all those lines of code in a computer program to know it is creating an accurate representation of the real world mathematically.

We had a saying from the early days of computer computations. "Garbage in, garbage out".


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## Ursa major (Sep 1, 2013)

Gordian Knot said:


> And who is smart enough to look through all those lines of code in a computer program to know it is creating an accurate representation of the real world mathematically.


I have a Theory on that (yes, a Theory with a capital T): "Not me."


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## Mirannan (Sep 1, 2013)

Gordian Knot said:


> In your phraseology I would agree it is a theory not a Theory. In actuality I have a problem with it being called either. As I understand it, a scientific theory requires two parts. That the theory can be tested, and that any positive results must be replicable by an independent source.
> 
> String theory fails both of these requirements. At this time we have no possible way to test for strings. Independent attempts are not possible when the original isn't testable in the first place.
> 
> ...



That's actually a general problem with computer proofs in mathematics as well as theoretical physics. I seem to remember that the 4-colour theorem was proved a few years ago, but many mathematicians disapprove of the method. Simply because it relied on dozens of hours of time on a powerful computer and could not possibly be checked by humans; doing so would take thousands of years.

Possible problems with such a method of proof include possible errors of logic in the computer code, or even errors in the compiled code - most people don't program in machine code these days. It's even conceivable that some random event flipped a bit in the computer somewhere and rendered the result garbage; this wouldn't necessarily be detected.

There are ways of making errors of this sort less likely, such as running the code several times on different computers with different internal logic and also writing the program in several languages. This makes errors less likely, not impossible.

There is a similar problem with human maths as well. The recent proof of Fermat's Last Theorem is going to take many years to solve, as it is absolutely huge and relies on large amounts of extremely advanced mathematics. Most mathematicians at the leading edge of their field would rather be doing original work than checking someone else's proof.


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## Velocius quam lucem (Sep 2, 2013)

Gordian Knot said:


> Science has done itself an incredible disservice by making the change to "everything is a theory". And it has given ammunition to those whose goal is to attack scientific credibility. The proof for the theory of evolution is vast; the proof for the concept that the entire universe is a three dimensional hologram is nonexistent.
> 
> Yet they are both called a theory. I'm not suggesting we go back to theories and laws. But we need some way to differentiate between the two. Desperately.



It may be that science is in "Cognito ergo sum". (I added the "n" on purpose). What I mean is that I remember hearing somewhere that many scientists became more cautious about what they proposed as "Truth" after hearing what befell Galileo. There is still a looming presence of those in disbelief of science because of their other beliefs. So, perhaps it is wise to let sleeping giants lay, so to speak. 

Can't we all just get a law?

I'm pretty sure I've read that it took at least a hundred years for Newton's Theories to become Laws. As I understand it, a hypothesis is the proposal of a theory, and becomes a theory after it has been tested, so the hypothesis must be "testable" or falsifiable as has been mentioned. 

From Wiki:Falsifiable -

By the problem of induction, no number of confirming observations can verify a universal generalization, such as _All swans are white_, yet it is logically possible to falsify it by observing a single black swan. Thus, the term _falsifiability_ is sometimes synonym to _testability_. Some statements, such as _It will be raining here in one million years_, are falsifiable in principle, but not in practice. 

I find it also interesting that many things were once discovered and then obscured. A few examples being: 
1. From the 3rd century BC, Aristarchus of Samos proposed an alternate cosmology - a heliocentric model of the solar system, placing the Sun, not the Earth, at the center of the known universe (hence he is sometimes known as the "Greek Copernicus"). 
2. Also from the same period, the Greek astronomers saw the curved shadow of the Earth on the Moon, and deduced from this that the Earth was round. (Yet they told Columbus he would fall of the edge of the planet.)

Here's another interesting artifact from the history of Astronomy - 

The Goseck circle  discovered in 1991: The enclosure is one of hundreds of similar wooden circular Henges built throughout Austria, Germany, and the Czech Republic. During a 200-year period around 4,900 BC.


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## jastius (Sep 1, 2014)

fractal science recreates evolution.

the this or that  and either / or exclusionism  behind conventional creationism has always disturbed me.
people look for laws instead of proofs. 
lazy thinking. 
there are many many  orphaned discoveries out there that have been disregarded because they don't fit into our laws and theories.
one was the marina trench.  somebody had to go down in a sub and take pictures before geologists were willing to say, 'yeah, you might have something there'.

ignoring the reality is why we all don't drive flying cars, people.


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## Ray McCarthy (Sep 1, 2014)

Christopher A. Gray said:


> Evolution has been scientifically proven. It is not "only" a theory, it is a theory that has been proven to be fact, with empirical evidence, many times over.



*A problem*

Neither the popular conception of Evolution or Darwin's Theory are current "Theory of Evolution". Nor has the current theory been proven the sense of many other Theories, but just that science currently has no better ideas. 

You can be 100% sure if you have proved a theory false. Very few can be 100% proved to be probability = 1, which is what Fact means.

"Creationism" in all its various guises are NOT at all theories as they are not about science at all ultimately. Most "Creationist" thinking especially of American origin doesn't stand up to proper Biblical, theoretical or Scientific analysis and is either Dark Ages inspired, Medieval or as logical as the Pastafarian Spaghetti monster.


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## Ray McCarthy (Sep 1, 2014)

> Yet they told Columbus he would fall of the edge of the planet


Actually they didn't.
Anyone in the last 2500 years approx that worried about it at  knew not only Earth is Round but approximate size. The problem was that they didn't think a Ship could carry enough food & water to get to Japan via the west. They were correct too.
Two theories. 
1) Columbus was an idiot and really believed Japan was where America is.
2) He knew something like America was there, because he studied Greenland Tithe records to Vatican. The Viking Christians on Greenland (later died off) certainly knew about Newfoundland. 

Actually I don't think he was an idiot. But perhaps not entirely honest as to his real intentions.
*
The Flat Earth thing is a later myth*
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_Flat_Earth
http://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/everyday-myths/10-false-facts.htm/printable
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Myths_within_science
Probably Snopes debunks this too.


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## Michael Colton (Sep 1, 2014)

Ray McCarthy said:


> You can be 100% sure if you have proved a theory false. Very few can be 100% proved to be probability = 1, which is what Fact means.



It is problematic to define fact in such a way. 100% is impossible to achieve for anything - it is not what is meant by fact. Fact simply means overwhelming evidential support for something.


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## Null_Zone (Sep 1, 2014)

Velocius quam lucem said:


> It may be that science is in "Cognito ergo sum". (I added the "n" on purpose). What I mean is that I remember hearing somewhere that many scientists became more cautious about what they proposed as "Truth" after hearing what befell Galileo. There is still a looming presence of those in disbelief of science because of their other beliefs. So, perhaps it is wise to let sleeping giants lay, so to speak.
> 
> Can't we all just get a law?
> 
> I'm pretty sure I've read that it took at least a hundred years for Newton's Theories to become Laws. As I understand it, a hypothesis is the proposal of a theory, and becomes a theory after it has been tested, so the hypothesis must be "testable" or falsifiable as has been mentioned.



Galileo's execution had nothing to do with his ideas, rather he had an amazing ability to annoy powerful people for a wide variety of reasons. That it was finally the pope he pushed too far is pure coincidence.

Newton "laws" are provably false within our on system, much less the maths driven problems of near light speed. So perhaps a better example of law is needed.


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## jastius (Sep 2, 2014)

perhaps he thought the inland sea was still there? baie comeau is the residue of an inland sea that used to traverse the continent. it would kind of explain him scooching around the jamacias. he was looking for the inlet.



Ray McCarthy said:


> Actually they didn't.
> Anyone in the last 2500 years approx that worried about it at  knew not only Earth is Round but approximate size. The problem was that they didn't think a Ship could carry enough food & water to get to Japan via the west. They were correct too.
> Two theories.
> 1) Columbus was an idiot and really believed Japan was where America is.
> ...


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## Vertigo (Sep 2, 2014)

Hmm I didn't think Gallileo was executed; incarcerated for life but not executed. Or am I wrong?


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## Michael Colton (Sep 2, 2014)

Vertigo said:


> Hmm I didn't think Gallileo was executed; incarcerated for life but not executed. Or am I wrong?



He died at seventy-seven while under house arrest. He was not executed.


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## BAYLOR (Sep 3, 2014)

The church didn't pardoned him until  1992.  350 years after his death, unbelievable.


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## Nick B (Sep 3, 2014)

For many scientists around the world, the word Theory sits better than the term Law.  One of the reasons for this is that (as discussed in a different thread) a Law is immutable, correct and proven beyond doubt to be real - therefore pointless to explore any more.  A Theory however is an ongoing case study, a reason to experiment and think, to go places that have yet to be trodden.

The most exciting time for real science isn't when someone shouts "Eureka!", it is when they mumble "Hmm, that's strange..."

Personally I hate to think in terms of law and absolute, if a persons opinion can not be changed in the face of new evidence then to be fair that doesn't say much for them.  So, really the theory of evolution really is a theory, it is not yet complete and probably never will be.


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## JoanDrake (Sep 5, 2014)

jastius said:


> perhaps he thought the inland sea was still there? baie comeau is the residue of an inland sea that used to traverse the continent. it would kind of explain him scooching around the jamacias. he was looking for the inlet.



Columbus used Ptolemy's model of the Earth, which made it only about 3000 miles from Spain to Japan. If he'd known the actual diameter he would probably not have gone as the minimum distance that way with no Americas  was 12,000 miles, a journey which would tax even modern ships if attempted with no breaks.

He remained convinced he was in Asia for all 4 voyages.

After all, he DID know there was something not that far away to the West. He had heard the legends of Basque Fishermen and of  piles of sea debris containing strange looking human bodies. There were also rumors that the Portuguese had discovered something called Brazil and were keeping it secret. (A Portuguese squadron followed him for a few days after he left the Azores  on the first voyage but then broke off). His only real mistake was that the large land mass was not Asia, but the North and South American continents.


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