What the scientific laws and stuff actually mean.

[A Random Reader]

So, I was browsing the escapist forums, and happened to stumble across the South Korea has banned evolution from school books [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.378097-So-South-Korea-has-banned-evolution-from-school-books] thread.
Now, being mildly curious, I clicked on it, and found that a significant number of people had no idea of what a scientific theory actually was, with one poster commenting on how they hope for evolution to be upgraded from scientific theory, to scientific law. If you don't see what's wrong with this, continue and I'll explain.

A Hypothesis
So say you have a scientist named Jill. During her studies, she comes across an unexplained Phenomenon. Being the scientist she is, she comes up with an idea about what might explain this. This is called a hypothesis. She will then go on to test this hypothesis in every possible way, and if any one of the observations disagrees with this, the hypothesis is wrong, and she must alter it to fit and then test it again. Once all the observations agree with this, she publishes her work for the scientific community to critique. If Jill was a competent scientist, and her hypothesis stands up to more observation and critique by other scientists, it is accepted as fact (Or a scientific theory) until such a time where observation disagrees with it.

A Scientific Law
A scientific law is a statement based on repeated experimental observation that describes some aspect of the world. For some reason people think this is more important than a scientific theory, when it is just a statement of fact. Examples would be the law of conservation of energy, or that S = U*T + A/2*T^2 (A simple equation to describe the displacement of an object based on its initial velocity, the time it's moving and the acceleration of the object). It explains what happens, not the why of it.

A Scientific Theory
Now we reach the most important part. A scientific theory is a collection of facts which explains a Phenomenon, otherwise known as a hypothesis which stands up to repeated critique via the scientific method. That's all it is. It's fact, just by a different name, until such a time where observation disagrees with it and it becomes known that it was never fact to begin with.

I hope this helped if you didn't know the differences before.

TLR
Read it, lazy. It's not that long.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcavPAFiG14&feature=plcp
This video also provides an explanation of most of my post.

EDIT:
Thanks Clearing the Eye, I'm correcting the last part of my section on the scientific Theory from "It's fact, just by a different name, until such a time where observation disagrees with it." to "It's fact, just by a different name, until such a time where observation disagrees with it and it becomes known that it was never fact to begin with." I would have assumed that my original format would have implied that, but I'm putting it there for clarity.

 

[Erana]

Its easier to have blind faith in anything instead of question it, even science. People who want the easy route want some kind of "official canon" of science to hold up as an absolute truth. And there are a lot of people out there who want an easy route but are too jaded to be religious.

And all of that is just silly, because science isn't a religion.

(I'm not trying to make a dig at religion here; I'm not saying that all religious people don't question the world around them or have no reason to believe what they believe. I'm speaking specifically about the sort of people who do like blind faith, in which case, a lot of religions are kind of the best place to look for canons that proclaim absolute truth. And if you still feel the need to make a religious debate out of my post, please take it to PMs and not derail the thread)

 

[Pinkamena]

The main problem here is that in daily speech, a "theory" is what a scientists would call a hypothesis.

 

[Woodsey]

I think the internet has just shown us how few people actually paid attention in their science lectures at school. Of course, as somebody who has (unsuccessfully) studied science at university level, and who has never been outside of a faculty or department of science in the five years I've been studying at third level so far, I have a lot of bias towards studying scientific and technical subjects in high levels of detail, but it does strike me that too many people don't actually look far enough into the subjects to understand what the fuck is going on.

Because they don't want to. Everyone is willfully ignorant to an extent, but an awful lot of people let it run rampant because it'll challenge something which has likely been ingrained into them since they were old enough to walk, by people who had the exact same problem.

The only reason a lot of grown adults believe in God and not Santa is because after a while your parents stop bothering with the idea of Santa, but they remain dogmatic when it comes to God.

If people had any intention of adjusting their views accordingly they'd do a quick Google search and educate themselves on what the OP has explained in about 2 minutes, but they don't.

 

[FinalHeart95]

Yeah, that's always bugged me. I mean, we have Cell Theory, which I don't think many people would argue against.

 

[Bradeck]

I think it would be beneficial to state what is and is not a fact. Especially with apologist theists out there like Sye Ten Bruggengate who basically attack the "factual" basis of reality, and they assert you cannot know anything is factual, therefor you cannot state that theism is "wrong" or lacking fact.

This of course differs from what William Lane Craig presents, "God" created everything, so why question it. Willful ignorance or as I like to call it, Blind Ignorance. Your vision does not allow you to conceive of a manner in which a "god" character cannot or would not make bananas yellow, or tree bark brown.

Anyway, Scientific "fact" has been tossed around alot, and incorrectly the majority of the time. Correct me if I am wrong on this, but it's "something that exists, or truth". Therein lay the problem. How do you define truth, as truth is a strictly subjective reality. It cannot be objective. There is no such thing as a objectively observable fact. There are objective statements; A is A, therefor A cannot be not A. But scientific "fact" is really just a well tested theory. As I understand it.

 

[Esotera]

The only thing I'd add to this is that the scientific community can be quite ugly in how it advances. Evidence can get ignored once a theory that is very important to a field has been established. An example of how everyone used to think DNA was boring, and proteins encoded our information, then that got switched around, and only now are we beginning to approach a middle ground. The peer review process is also quite easily corrupted for small fields, where everyone knows everyone else, or if the reviewer isn't a specialist on the article's topic (there are quite a few frauds in Nature that were published because of this).

But yeah, obviously evolution is still true, we have overwhelming evidence for this.

 

[Yopaz]

First of all, thanks you OP for doing the effort to make this clear for people on this site. I hate the abuse of the word theory and I am always trying to correct those who think that a theory is just an idea someone has proposed. However I have also heard that a scientific law often implies that we're able to predict the outcome of something based on it. Like predicting the next solar or lunar eclipse, while a theory only implies we understand the phenomenon and that the scientific community has yet to find any flaws in it. This isn't always true though since there are several theories that let us predict things and the use of theory rather than law is more a trend than actual labels.

The main problem here is that in daily speech, a "theory" is what a scientists would call a hypothesis.

This is a very good point too and it's great that someone raised it. I do never use the word theory in daily speech because of the fact that people are already confused. I use hypothesis where I have some reason to believe it and no reason to doubt it, educated guess where I use the facts to assemble an idea of reason, or simply idea when it's something I think might be like that.

I think the internet has just shown us how few people actually paid attention in their science lectures at school. Of course, as somebody who has (unsuccessfully) studied science at university level, and who has never been outside of a faculty or department of science in the five years I've been studying at third level so far, I have a lot of bias towards studying scientific and technical subjects in high levels of detail, but it does strike me that too many people don't actually look far enough into the subjects to understand what the fuck is going on.

Because they don't want to. Everyone is willfully ignorant to an extent, but an awful lot of people let it run rampant because it'll challenge something which has likely been ingrained into them since they were old enough to walk, by people who had the exact same problem.

The only reason a lot of grown adults believe in God and not Santa is because after a while your parents stop bothering with the idea of Santa, but they remain dogmatic when it comes to God.

If people had any intention of adjusting their views accordingly they'd do a quick Google search and educate themselves on what the OP has explained in about 2 minutes, but they don't.

You'd be surprised at how many adults actually believe in Santa. Of course, there's no real statistics, but a lot of adults have stated that they believe in Santa.

 

[Clearing the Eye]

Nothing is law, really. That's just what we go ahead and label theories that stick for a while. I'm pretty sure the flat earth theory was considered fact at some point.

 

[Clearing the Eye]

But yeah, obviously evolution is still true, we have overwhelming evidence for this.

Actually, evolution of species (micro and macro) is theory--it's the theory of evolution.

 

[JokerboyJordan]

Nothing is law, really. That's just what we go ahead and label theories that stick for a while. I'm pretty sure the flat earth theory was considered fact at some point.

Except for the fact that it had no scientific basis, only a religious one.

But yeah, obviously evolution is still true, we have overwhelming evidence for this.

Actually, evolution of species (micro and macro) is theory--it's the theory of evolution.

And the OP basically explains how a fact by any other name is still a fact. Cite an alternative to evolution that has the same amount of scientific evidence.

 

[renegade7]

It's just so much easier to put blind faith in things. Science is not only difficult to understand, but it can make the universe look like a really scary kind of place.

For instance, the mediocrity principal. It isn't always easy to just up and admit that you're not really all that special, but if you refuse to acknowledge you're not going to learn much about the universe.

Or gamma ray pulses. If one of those hit the Earth, it would wipe out all life in an instant and there is not a thing we can do about it.

Really, the universe is just scary sometimes. I can understand why some people would prefer to think that a supreme being of some sort will protect them.

 

[Clearing the Eye]

It's fact, just by a different name, until such a time where observation disagrees with it.

If it is successfully challenged, it was never fact. Facts are truth and faultless. If something is proven wrong, it was never at least fully true and must have been faulty. Thus, it wasn't a fact. For example, if we think a a red ball is green, but later realize it to actually be red, that it was green was never a fact--it was always red.

Theory in science is an idea that has been tested and with evidence to support it. A theory is not a fact.

 

[Clearing the Eye]

And the OP basically explains how a fact by any other name is still a fact. Cite an alternative to evolution that has the same amount of scientific evidence.

Actually, they are wrong, either through misunderstanding or gross over simplification that has resulted in misinformation.

See above.

 

[Clearing the Eye]

But yeah, obviously evolution is still true, we have overwhelming evidence for this.

Actually, evolution of species (micro and macro) is theory--it's the theory of evolution.

as opposed to Newton's law of universal gravitation.


yes. I have met several people where I live who call it a Theory instead of a law.

why yes, they are also blindly religious people.

I have also seen people claim Evolution is a law due to evidence of various species 'evolving' through Natural Selection [runner course, if a species has traits that will allow it to survive better than another member of the same species, there is a chance it will pass on these genes to its offspring].

While Natural Selection is indeed a main component of evolution, it isn't proof positive of evolution, nor is it the only process of evolution. Mutation being another, more random part.

What I have seen for the arguments of Science is how confusing terms can be for people who don't study the subjects.

We hear 'theory' and think it as a hypothesis, we hear 'Law' and take it for blind fact.

It is confusing, for those who never paid attention during their basic sciences classes in school, or who watch Fox News on a regular basis.

Wouldn't anything be confusing to someone who watches Fox News?

 

[Woodsey]

But yeah, obviously evolution is still true, we have overwhelming evidence for this.

Actually, evolution of species (micro and macro) is theory--it's the theory of evolution.

Oh for the love of-

Evolution is a fact and a theory.

[a
href=https://www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&safe=off&sclient=psy-ab&q=scientific+fact+definition&oq=scientific+fact+definition&aq=f&aqi=g1g-bK1&aql=&gs_l=hp.3..0j0i8i30.419.4267.0.4457.26.12.0.3.3.0.764.2928.3j5j1j1j0j1j1.12.0...0.0.azah4sE1R4U&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=f4d6def3eef04394&biw=1366&bih=667]Scientific fact[/a]: an observation that has been confirmed repeatedly and is accepted as true (although its truth is never final).

[a
href=https://www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&safe=off&sclient=psy-ab&q=scientific+theory+definition&oq=scientific+theory+definition&aq=f&aqi=g-c2g1g-c1&aql=&gs_l=hp.3..0i7l2j0j0i7.55104.56531.1.56754.10.9.0.0.0.2.142.882.5j4.9.0...0.0.dIlY-E1JhMM&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=f4d6def3eef04394&biw=1366&bih=667]Scientific theory[/a]:a theory that explains scientific observations; "scientific theories must be falsifiable"

The fact is what happens, the theory is why it happens. Note that in this context a fact does not mean a complete and utter proof that is infallible until the end of time. That's the virtue of science, it doesn't stick to the same nonsense for 1000s of years if it's clearly at fault.

Seriously people, you're already using the internet - GOOGLE.

You'd be surprised at how many adults actually believe in Santa. Of course, there's no real statistics, but a lot of adults have stated that they believe in Santa.

I was talking more about people who don't live in mental institutions.