Hypothesis. Theory is rather more demonstrated. I need to see some serious evidence here before we accept hypothesis as theory.
+1
It's sad when people misuse the word Theory.... I blame the media for scientific illiteracy.
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Nope. Just a guy who's really interested in PFO (it's better than funny cats) and decided to try to be helpful. Although it's very flattering to realize that I might actually be relatively successful at that being helpful.
And I owe a big thanks to the people who steered me onto the right track in that regard. They know who they are.
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Hypothesis. Theory is rather more demonstrated. I need to see some serious evidence here before we accept hypothesis as theory.+1
It's sad when people misuse the word Theory.... I blame the media for scientific illiteracy.
Indeed... ever since The Big Bang Theory started airing, the word hypothesis has been deleted from my dictionary...
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Indeed... ever since The Big Bang Theory started airing, the word hypothesis has been deleted from my dictionary...Hypothesis. Theory is rather more demonstrated. I need to see some serious evidence here before we accept hypothesis as theory.+1
It's sad when people misuse the word Theory.... I blame the media for scientific illiteracy.
Actually has nothing to do with that show, the issue dates back several decades. It is called intelligent falling, and it mostly came about when certain religious groups did not like conclusions that scientists had made, and worked to ensure that in common speech, the word theory came to mean a guess without evidence to support it.
If you ask an off the street american what a theory is, they will tell you it is a guess that has not been proven. While in scientific context it essentially means an explanation for many confirmed facts.
Some people think that in science, you have a theory, and once it's proven, it becomes a law. That's not how it works. In science, we collect facts, or observations, we use laws to describe them, and a theory to explain them. You don't promote a theory to a law by proving it. A theory never becomes a law.This bears repeating. A theory never becomes a law. In fact, if there was a hierarchy of science, theories would be higher than laws. There is nothing higher, or better, than a theory. Laws describe things, theories explain them. An example will help you to understand this. There's a law of gravity, which is the description of gravity. It basically says that if you let go of something it'll fall. It doesn't say why. Then there's the theory of gravity, which is an attempt to explain why. Actually, Newton's Theory of Gravity did a pretty good job, but Einstein's Theory of Relativity does a better job of explaining it. These explanations are called theories, and will always be theories. They can't be changed into laws, because laws are different things. Laws describe, and theories explain.
Just because it's called a theory of gravity, doesn't mean that it's just a guess. It's been tested. All our observations are supported by it, as well as its predictions that we've tested. Also, gravity is real! You can observe it for yourself. Just because it's real doesn't mean that the explanation is a law. The explanation, in scientific terms, is called a theory.
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... it mostly came about when certain religious groups did not like conclusions that scientists had made...
That's one way to put it. Another is that certain scientists were trying to use "theories" to prove that religious groups were wrong.
This bears repeating. A theory never becomes a law.
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Uhhh...wait a second... I thought the difference between a Law and a Theory was that a Law was Mathematicaly Provable...or I guess more exactly was incapable of being disproven, Wheras a Theory was strongly supported by Fact but not capable of being expressed in a format that was unassailble.
Example:
Ideal Gas Law - pV = nRT
All life on Earth derived from a single common origion = Theory...since data strongly supports the arguement...but other explanations exist which are not capable of being disproven by the data, even if highly unlikely.
Was my High School science teacher wrong?
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Wheras a Theory was strongly supported by Fact but not capable of being expressed in a format that was unassailble.
That doesn't sound right.
It's quite possible to express a theory in a form that could be falsified; in fact, Falsifiability is one of the hallmarks of a Scientific Theory.
My understanding is that a Law can be proven to be true, whereas a Theory can only be proven to be false.
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Aww...everyone loves a Nihimon. *tear* It has been such a great journey watching him evolve from forum fighter to the near mystic presence he has now...
...so proud. *tear* loves ya man...
To the recent point, I have my doubts that it is possible to prove something false, rather we must prove something else true.
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Hypothesis is an idea based on observation.
Theory is a hypothesis or a group of hypothesis that has not been disproved by experimental observation after efforts are made to disprove it. Interestingly, experiments are seeking to disprove hypothesis not prove them. Google null hypothesis for more on that...
A law is a similar to a theory but it has more of an explanation built into. It has been proven consistently observable so many times that it is as close to a "fact" as science can go. Short of us living in the Matrix it is true.
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I think you could view a law in the same way as we view a game mechanic.
The law is you can do damage with [edit: a successful] attack. We can make a theory as to why certain things affect the outcome of the attack. We then collect experimental data on attacking by attacking a monster with various weapons over and over and over and recording the results. We then see if the results are predicted by theory. If they are, we now have a deeper understanding of how attacking works and can adjust our character's development to attack more successfully. If not, then it's magic and we are doomed to ignorance.
What we may be doing here is theorizing about how laws in-game would work without experimental data to assess the validity or falsehood of the theory.
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Hypothesis is an idea based on observation.
Theory is a hypothesis or a group of hypothesis that has not been disproved by experimental observation after efforts are made to disprove it. Interestingly, experiments are seeking to disprove hypothesis not prove them. Google null hypothesis for more on that...
A law is a similar to a theory but it has more of an explanation built into. It has been proven consistently observable so many times that it is as close to a "fact" as science can go. Short of us living in the Matrix it is true.
And sometimes, theories are laws that we keep calling a theory due to convention and habit, such as relativity and evolution.
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What we may be doing here is theorizing about how laws in-game would work without experimental data to assess the validity or falsehood of the theory.
Without having either the capability to experiment, or having a completed product to make real observations, we aren't theorizing at all, we are guessing. We can make basic a few basic hypothesizes based on the developers statements, but even the developers themselves are very open about the fact that everything they say, could be completely subject to change before the product is completed.
That's one way to put it. Another is that certain scientists were trying to use "theories" to prove that religious groups were wrong.
Personally I wouldn't describe scientists as attempting to prove religion wrong, that is impossible and not an intention of most scientists. I don't see any cosmological or biological principles as any harsher to religion, than when Galileo nearly got the death sentence for his disproving geocentricism, Or when diseases were discovered to have non supernatural causes.
and now we are dangerously drifting close to a topic lock if we haven't already crossed such a line.
Back to the actual topic. Nihmon would certainly make a good community manager. I would certainly vote in favor of him having mod status. I would say based on current evidence, no Nihmon is almost certainly not employed by GW. He certainly is very adept at what GW members have already said, but when it comes to predicting what is going to happen, his insight is only high. I wouldn't consider his predictions as above any other long time observer such as grumpymel, Blaeringer, Andius etc... Nor does he avoid speculating like someone with inside knowledge would need to.
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And sometimes, theories are laws that we keep calling a theory due to convention and habit, such as relativity and evolution.Hypothesis is an idea based on observation.
Theory is a hypothesis or a group of hypothesis that has not been disproved by experimental observation after efforts are made to disprove it. Interestingly, experiments are seeking to disprove hypothesis not prove them. Google null hypothesis for more on that...
A law is a similar to a theory but it has more of an explanation built into. It has been proven consistently observable so many times that it is as close to a "fact" as science can go. Short of us living in the Matrix it is true.
No. There are not enough observations to elevate those theories to law. There may not be enough observations in our life time unless the theory of relativity becomes the law of relativity because we invent time travel and can go observe evolution. The fossil record contains observations that do not disprove evolution but that are so many vast gaps in the record and the theory has currently unexplained holes.
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Personally I wouldn't describe scientists as attempting to prove religion wrong, that is impossible and not an intention of most scientists.
I was careful to say "some scientists". Google "disproving God" and you'll find plenty of examples. I was merely trying to point out that it's a two-edged sword, with (probably a minority of) both sides saying silly things that most reasonable people wouldn't go along with.
... we are dangerously drifting close to a topic lock if we haven't already crossed such a line.
If ever a thread needed to go off-topic, this is the one :)
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Wheras a Theory was strongly supported by Fact but not capable of being expressed in a format that was unassailble.That doesn't sound right.
It's quite possible to express a theory in a form that could be falsified; in fact, Falsifiability is one of the hallmarks of a Scientific Theory.
My understanding is that a Law can be proven to be true, whereas a Theory can only be proven to be false.
No, no. Clearly a Theory is testable and has been tested. But it is still assailble....in that it is possible to offer alternate explanations that have not been falsified YET, even though they may be highly improbable.
A Law (as I was taught) it is not possible to assail because any expression which would contradict it would yield a result which was logicaly and mathematicaly inconsistent (essentialy in order to contradict it you'd have to show that A + B <> B + A )....or at least that's the way I was taught it.
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Yes, a scientific law is something that has been observed and verified experimentally so well that we can simply accept it as truth for all intents and purposes (up to the limits of our current observational abilities!).
Even if our current theories change on, for example, gravity (e.g. Conformal Gravity), it doesn't invalidate the mathematical relationships we've been using for centuries to calculate artillery trajectories, build skyscrapers, construct aircraft, and launch rockets to the moon (if you believe in that sort of thing ;))
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And sometimes, theories are laws that we keep calling a theory due to convention and habit, such as relativity and evolution.No. There are not enough observations to elevate those theories to law.
I...can't...won't...I...ugg...ummm...
/writhe in pain
Anyways, how about those Nihimons?
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Personally I wouldn't describe scientists as attempting to prove religion wrong, that is impossible and not an intention of most scientists. I don't see any cosmological or biological principles as any harsher to religion, than when Galileo nearly got the death sentence for his disproving geocentricism, Or when diseases were discovered to have non supernatural causes.
The moving goal post argument. It can be very frustrating to try to completely disprove something so evasive and mutable. But it would seem religion does a far better job of disproving itself without science's help anyways.
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Any scientist attempting to prove religion is wrong is not acting as a scientist, as religion cannot be proven wrong. This goes the same for any scientist attempting to scientifically validate a religion's origin explanation. Both the USSR AND Kansas had it wrong.
EDIT: Changed slightly so it didn't seem like I was responding directly to KitNyx's question, which he posted seconds before my post.
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Congrats, Nihimon!!
And clarifying the hypothesis, theory, law confusion. From chemistry at about.com:
http://chemistry.about.com/od/chemistry101/a/lawtheory.htm
A hypothesis is an educated guess, based on observation. Usually, a hypothesis can be supported or refuted through experimentation or more observation. A hypothesis can be disproven, but not proven to be true.
A scientific theory summarizes a hypothesis or group of hypotheses that have been supported with repeated testing. A theory is valid as long as there is no evidence to dispute it.
A law generalizes a body of observations. At the time it is made, no exceptions have been found to a law. Scientific laws explain things, but they do not describe them. One way to tell a law and a theory apart is to ask if the description gives you a means to explain 'why'.
The theory is the common currency of science. Theories are our "working models" of the universe. Some repeatable patterns are so definite and we're so incredibly certain that they won't ever get overturned that we've assigned them a special place as a law. The reason that most laws are in physics and math is that mathematics is the easiest way to demonstrate that we're getting the same answer over and over and over again. Geology is usually too messy for that and biology is very messy. The 'social sciences' don't come anywhere close.
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Any scientist attempting to prove religion is wrong is not acting as a scientist, as religion cannot be proven wrong.
If religion could be proven wrong, which thanks to the moving goal post argument I agree with you that it can't be, but if it could then it would be unscientific not to accept it.
If a scientist did actually stumble across something that could, hypothetically speaking of course, absolutely prove religion wrong, then he would not be acting as a scientist to ignore that.
In any case, it also happens to be just as impossible to disprove the existence of my imaginary friend.
I'm trying to walk around this topic with more tact than I usually take on these forums though, so maybe it would be best for me to just back off at this point.
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Randomwalker's law (or was that theory?) of religious proof:
Theology + Science => Philosophy
Applying scientific methods and arguments to religious content, you invariably end up having to define things like "truth", "proof" and "reality", followed by defining "I", "God" and "observe", and eventually discussing whether the seemingly linear nature of time means everything is an one-time exception anyway. That is neither science nor religion, but pure philosophy (meta-physics).
@theory vs law:
Onishi's quote from notjustatheory has it right. The law states what happens, the theory tries to explain why. It's just that it is much easier to observe, test and agree on what (stuff falls to the ground) than on why (quantum gravitation theory). Also there can be competing theories but usually no competing laws, since you can agree on what while disagreeing on why easier than the other way around.
@topic:
Nihimon surely is an acting community manager, only without pay or official status and his only reward being occasional thanks on the forums.
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In any case, it also happens to be just as impossible to disprove the existence of my imaginary friend.
Absolutely correct, and good science. Although your use of "imaginary" implies either a judgement or a wider definition of "existence" than physics normally uses.
If i'm inclined to philosphy, i could make following two statements
1-any imaginary object observed (ie imagined) which is not Blaeringr's friend weakens the hypothesis of the imaginary friend existing.
2-any non-imaginary object that is not a friend of Blaeringr strengthens the hypothesis of the imaginary friend existing. (since contrapositive statements are logically equivalent).
If i'm inclined to theology, i would rather say: beware of the imaginary voice in your head and test its intentions before listening to it.
;-)
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...
Theology + Science => Philosophy
...
Sorry: notice history. The sciences are specializations of Philosophy. Theology is 'beyond' or 'outside of' philosophy. For some philosophy leads to theology and for others philosophy leads away from theology.
Some see 'the love of wisdom' as theological in nature and others see 'the love of wisdom' as atheological in nature.
...and by the way the plural of hypothesis is hypotheses. Hypothetically.
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Because I believe in a Prescriptive language (like lojban), as opposed to Descriptive, I present to you the dictionary definition of a Theory...
Theory: A coherent group of tested general propositions, commonly regarded as correct, that can be used as principles of explanation and prediction for a class of phenomena: Einstein's theory of relativity. Synonyms: principle, law, doctrine.
And here is the first dictionary definition of Law that pertains to science (as opposed to laws against jay-walking :P)
Law: A general principle, formula, or rule describing a phenomenon in mathematics, science, philosophy, etc: the laws of thermodynamics
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It is actually an interesting question...can anyone think of anything they can "disprove" in any manner other than supporting an alternate truth instead? Can't we just prove x wrong?
I guess that would depend on how you define "alternate truth". You can prove something is NOT the case without knowing what IS the case.
You can disprove that Joe is the person living at 28 mocking bird lane by calling up Joe and asking him where he lives. Doesn't tell you who is living at that address just that it's not Joe.
Anyway, from my understanding, Science concerns itself strictly with things that are testable with current tools/methods of observation. From what I was taught, the appropriate scientific response for something untestable is "I don't know" or "I have know way of knowing."... but my background is as an Engineer so usualy I'm more concerned with answering the question "How is that usefull" or "What's usefull here".
I'll honestly admit that as cool as I generaly find scientists, alot of time they just end up confusing the heck out of me....especialy some of the more esoteric theoretical stuff.
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If religion could be proven wrong, which thanks to the moving goal post argument I agree with you that it can't be...
It's not so much the "moving goal post" as it is the impossibility of trying to prove that there's not an omnipotent being hiding from you.
In any case, it also happens to be just as impossible to disprove the existence of my imaginary friend.
Exactly.
Personally, I find "scientific" attempts to disprove God exactly as silly as religious attempts to explain the physical universe.
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You think discussions about wisdom and godhood are off topic in a thread about Nihimon's vocation?
<thunderstruck!>
Fair enough... I propose Nihimon be made a new God in the PF universe:
Nihimon (alignment: NE) - God of annihilation and discussion.
Domains: War, Destruction, Death, Evil
Favored Weapon: Tome
For those of you who didn't know how to pronounce His name before, you can thank me now. (If you still don't get it, read the part right after alignment more closely.)
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For those of you who didn't know how to pronounce His name before, you can thank me now. (If you still don't get it, read the part right after alignment more closely.)
Aha! You, sir, have just earned my eternal gratitude!
As to the alignment... I suppose it's possible it's merely a delusion that I think I'm actually NG...
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For those of you who didn't know how to pronounce His name before, you can thank me now. (If you still don't get it, read the part right after alignment more closely.)Aha! You, sir, have just earned my eternal gratitude!
Of course, the "eternal gratitude" of a God of Annihilation/Destruction/Evil/etc. may not be the best thing to have ;)
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Sorry: notice history. The sciences are specializations of Philosophy. Theology is 'beyond' or 'outside of' philosophy....
Theology + Science => Philosophy
...
Being, you are of course correct and the correct term should be metaphysics, not philosophy. My point was that you can't discuss God in scientific terms without first defining words like "reality" and "existence", which most people would classify as philosophical discussions (or theological).
As for sciences as specializations of philosophy i would argue philosophy is inductive/reasoning based while scientific method is deductive/observation based, and that science as well could be regarded as the anti-thesis to, or the evolution of, philosophy.
but on these forums i'm more interested in the design philosophy!
(and the cult of Nihimon)