It’s just a theory
May 4th, 2009 by Grandpa OddballCopyright © GetOddNews and Grandpa Oddball May 4, 2009. All rights reserved.
First: Scientists know that whatever theory is finally deemed valid must be consistent with our previous body of scientific knowledge. A scientific theory is not allowed to be a special case which conflicts with past experience. Scientists know this and also have a great deal of scientific knowledge (or else know how to research the subject) so they tend to craft their speculations to satisfy this constraint. Of course no person is perfect and scientists like other humans make mistakes. As you might expect, because of this imperfection, most potential theories are abandoned at this early stage of development. Fortunately mankind occasionally has the gift of insight and the seeds of a new and often profound theory are sown at this stage of a theory’s development.
Second: A scientific theory does not rely on some authority for validation but only on direct observation. This usually summarized by stating that scientific theory must conform to the requirements of the scientific method. Specifically a successful scientific theory must
- Explain the phenomenon under investigation.
- Be consistent with other observations of the natural world.
- Be verifiable via experiment. Other scientists, working independently, must be able to reproduce the experimental results.
- Have observable consequences. In particular a scientific theory must be able to explain and predict new phenomena.
There are also a number of supporting procedures involved such as peer review of any observable results, critical analysis of data, self-consistency of the theory, etc. but the above steps are the primary requirements that any scientific theory must satisfy. As you can imagine few theories are able to satisfy all these constraints and many proposed scientific theories fail to survive these requirements.
Note; speculation is not a theory. It is, at best, an idea for a theory. If it is a good speculation it may survive to the next step which is to use the speculation to form a hypothesis. A hypothesis is a proposed scientific theory and often serves as a working model which is used investigate the phenomenon being investigated. As a working model of a theory, a hypothesis is frequently modified as more experience or insight into the phenomenon is obtained.
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Tags: Evolution, religion, Science
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