To begin let’s be clear; all theories (scientific or otherwise) start out as speculation, speculation that generally arises from wonder, puzzlement or self-interest. Self-interest is a common and interesting reason for creating a theory. In fact, the variety of self-interest is far too great to elaborate on here. It encompasses a variety of motives from lunatics or nuts that craft and promote half-baked theories to those entrenched in power who are threatened by advances in scientific understanding. Self-interest (e.g., greed) motivates charlatans and confidence men to often deliberately promote foolish theories cloaked in the trappings of science. Self-interest such as an inability to face facts or to admit mistakes or to acknowledge cultural deficiencies motivates some people to sincerely concoct convoluted theories for assurance and comfort.

However, scientific theories are special. Like most (non self-interest) theories scientific theories start out trying to understand the world in which we live. In this respect both of the two great philosophies inherent in modern life have the common anchor of trying to explain the wonder and mysteries of nature. But scientific theories follow a much different path to validation.

Generally scientific theories evolve by a procedure like
This is a very special procedure and the end result, which is a convincing scientific theory, is a long and arduous process. Many theories are discarded (discredited) along the way and relegated to the trash heap of history. The scientific method is harsh and unforgiving and any theory that becomes convincing has survived an incredible number of attacks and critical analyses.

The process starts out with the same wonder and puzzlement we all have about the universe and our place in it. In particular, science is concerned with trying to explain the natural mysteries of the “natural” world. Science leaves the sphere of morals and ethics to other philosophies such as religion.

Scientists when observing some phenomenon, in common with many other philosophies, then usually speculate on the reason or causes of the phenomenon. However the seeming similarity of scientific speculation to non-scientific speculation is only superficial. Scientists, if they ever want to create a convincing theory, have two severe constraints on their speculations that are not present in other philosophies.

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Tags: Evolution, religion, Science

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