Theory vs Fact

[Gary88]

This is something I have been meaning to post for a while but never have. Often in threads about science, though specifically evolution, people often comment that “it isn’t a fact it is just a theory” and I am sure I am not the only person who can become irritated by this. It isn’t of course the persons fault that they make such a mistake as the use of the word theory in science is not like that which we use in everyday life.

Now what is the mistake the person has made by saying “it isn’t a fact it is just a theory”?
The first mistake is the assumption that a fact is ‘beyond’ a theory or that a theory can ‘become a fact’. in science a fact can be a very trivial matter, for instance if I drop a small rubber ball and measure how high it bounces of the ground I get a fact. The ball bounced 0.58 metres is a fact. We could get yet more trivial, the ball falling to the ground is a fact as well. Hundreds or thousands (or at CERN literally billions) of ‘trivial’ facts will be used to build up a theory, a theory is not built up to become a fact.
Dr Ken Miller explains this quite succinctly with the following example. If you look in a physics textbook, there will be a chapter on ‘Atomic Theory‘. If we look back in 50 years time we will not find that textbooks now contain a section titled ‘Atomic Fact’. a theory may one day be changed (improved or entirely replaced) but it will never be proved.

The second Mistake is that a theory is a hypothesis. In everyday language we could use theory and hypothesis interchangeably but this says more about our grasp of the English language than it does about these two ideas. A hypothesis is indeed what we use it to mean in normal life, it is an idea or even a guess at how we believe something to happen/work/occur.

So what is a theory?
A theory is in essence the height of science, a theory is an over ridding reason behind why the facts that we observe are as we observe them. A theory not only encompasses all the facts but it attempts to explain the reason for those facts, facts cannot explain themselves.
A fact is that an object falls to the ground if not supported, the theory of gravity (in the classical sense) explains that all masses exert a force of attraction that is proportional to their mass.

Facts>>>Hypothesis>>>experiments>>>more experiments>>>even more experiments>>>theory

The hierarchy in science contains one last word. This is so called ‘Laws of science’, Law is a word we sometimes give to facts which are considered to always be true. For instance we talk about the laws of physics or the laws of gravity or the laws of thermodynamics. But the word law can have very different meanings depending on the field of science you specialise in.

The hierarchy is thus
Theory
Law
Hypothesis
Fact

So as you can see it is not a case that “theories are unproven” or that “it’s a theory not a fact” theories are far more important than facts in science as theories explain facts. The theory of evolution is not simply an idea or hypothesis it is a thoroughly tested and substantiated theory which covers myriad facts and supporting evidence.


i hope this is useful or interesting to some of you (or at least that someone reads the whole way through) if there is anything you think is wrong or could be explained better please say because i will ammend this. i want it to help people understand the importance of theories so any help is much appreciated

[Simetrical]

It's worthwhile to note that scientific theories need not be proven to be called theories. String theory, for instance, doesn't look to be provable in the immediate future, but it's still a theory because it's an organized framework for looking at things that at least might potentially yield predictions.

[ajm317]

It's worthwhile to note that scientific theories need not be proven to be called theories. String theory, for instance, doesn't look to be provable in the immediate future, but it's still a theory because it's an organized framework for looking at things that at least might potentially yield predictions.

It's also worthwhile to note that there are people who don't feel that string theory should be called a theory, precisely because it cannot be tested at this time.

[bspiken]

It should also be noted that while not all of them are "thoughfully" proven, most theories have a pretty strong schoolary backing, and theyre not readily accepted by the scientific community, but tested and researched by several years after theyre proposed.

[Gary88]

cheers for the input sim, do you think i should amend the op or is it good enough that its in the second post?

[Chaigidel]

this sort of wording must be put out there and absolutely understood, Im sure we are all tired of people citing evolution as a theory and so not valid--- but the fact is that a theory is the apex of the law, the result of the facts, they just have enough sense to say it is a theory out of understanding ( understanding they will never have all the variables accounted for.

the whole theory isnt proven stuff needs to stop ( except on things where it is completely theoretical and has not yeilded factual results) but just discounting scientific facts just because they group them in theory groups is totally wrong.

[Quacky]

If only things were quite as clear cut Gary88. Simetrical makes the point about "unprovable" theories but actually quite often theres well sort of bad science. If you read a few papers you can see this sort of thing sometimes, they make the observation, the fact, come up with a hypothesis. Then sort of decide this is true and write down their theory and go about trying to prove their theory is true. Ignoring ambiguous results or leaving things unexplained so that their theory looks correct when in practice its probably mostly true but not the whole story.

[Gary88]

Ignoring ambiguous results or leaving things unexplained so that their theory looks correct when in practice its probably mostly true but not the whole story.

true, quite true but then at the end of the day even the best and most established theories have issues around them. also i wanted this to be simple so that people could understand what i was getting at. finally i made it because i wanted to stop people saying "it's not a fact its a theory" when talking about evolution when they dont realise that there is a lot of evidence and science which backs up the theory.