Speed of Light still safe

Speed of Light still safe

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Simpo Two

85,149 posts

264 months

Friday 24th February 2012
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I'm open to a rational explanation if you'd care to provide it, rather than just scattering smilies about.

Laplace

1,090 posts

181 months

Friday 24th February 2012
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Simpo Two said:
I'm open to a rational explanation if you'd care to provide it, rather than just scattering smilies about.
I tried to be as succinct as possible a few posts up, no smilies either. smile I'm just nit-picking over semantics here but when discussing scientific topics I think it's important.

In daily non-technical use it's perfectly acceptable to use theory to describe say an idea, a guess, conjecture or an opinion etc.

Its usage defines its definition.

When used in the technical context where you are desrcibing a scientific theory the word takes on a different definition. In this usage a theory is born from a successfully verified idea, the theory never comes first. First you have an idea, then you have to test it, be it by experiment or observation etc. If and only if the idea agrees with experiment and stands up to repeated scrutiny over time can it be become a theory.

A hypothesis would best describe an idea when talking in this context as a hypothesis is unproven.

BarnatosGhost

31,608 posts

252 months

Friday 24th February 2012
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Simpo Two said:
I'm open to a rational explanation if you'd care to provide it, rather than just scattering smilies about.
Something only becomes scientific theory once everyone has tried to find fault and failed. A scientific theory is an idea that seems to have no errors. It fits alongside everything we think we know. If an error or contradiction is found, you need to amend or reject the theory in the light of the new discovery.

Simpo Two

85,149 posts

264 months

Friday 24th February 2012
quotequote all
Well that's interesting. I use the word theory to mean an idea. Hence 'theoretical', ie not proven. There now seems to be a new meaning to the word which means 'proven'. Perhaps it derives from 'Theorum' as in geometry.

Then again there is the 'Theory of Gravity' and we know that gravity certainly exists. Perhaps it means there's a chance we will all fly off into space until it is understood!

So going back to the matter of considering as-yet unknown particles, the guys with the blackboards push equations around and come up with a hypothesis rather than a theory?

ewenm

28,506 posts

244 months

Friday 24th February 2012
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Simpo Two said:
So going back to the matter of considering as-yet unknown particles, the guys with the blackboards push equations around and come up with a hypothesis rather than a theory?
yes

BarnatosGhost

31,608 posts

252 months

Friday 24th February 2012
quotequote all
Yup, just a disparity between the commonplace and the scientific usage of the word. Most frequently and deliberately misunderstood by creationists who assume the theory of evolution is a guess.

Like 'similar' - in day to day usage it means alike, but not identical. In scientific useage it means identically proportioned. I wouldn't normally say a squash ball and planet earth were similar.

Prepedant edit: yes, earth is an oblate spheroid...

Edited by BarnatosGhost on Friday 24th February 10:17


Edited by BarnatosGhost on Friday 24th February 10:18

Simpo Two

85,149 posts

264 months

Friday 24th February 2012
quotequote all
BarnatosGhost said:
Yup, just a disparity between the commonplace and the scientific usage of the word. Most frequently and deliberately misunderstood by creationists who assume the theory of evolution is a guess.
It might avoid misunderstanding if you dropped the 'theory' part and just called it 'evolution' smile

I think 99% of people, if you asked them 'Is a theory something real or just an idea' would vote for 'idea'.

Marf

22,907 posts

240 months

Friday 24th February 2012
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Simpo Two said:
I think 99% of people, if you asked them 'Is a theory something real or just an idea' would vote for 'idea'.
99% of people being mistaken doesn't make something correct.

Simpo Two said:
I'm open to a rational explanation if you'd care to provide it, rather than just scattering smilies about.
Hypothesis - I've seen this happen, I think it's because of this

Theory - I've tested what I've seen happen, and now have evidence to support what I thought the reason was.

Or am I oversimplifying here?


ewenm

28,506 posts

244 months

Friday 24th February 2012
quotequote all
Simpo Two said:
It might avoid misunderstanding if you dropped the 'theory' part and just called it 'evolution' smile

I think 99% of people, if you asked them 'Is a theory something real or just an idea' would vote for 'idea'.
Evolution is the "thing".
The theory of evolution is our best understanding of how the "thing" happens; our tested explanation of the "thing" that has been observed.

Edit to add emphasis.

Edited by ewenm on Friday 24th February 12:03

BarnatosGhost

31,608 posts

252 months

Friday 24th February 2012
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Marf said:
Hypothesis - I've seen this happen, I think it's because of this

Theory - I've tested what I've seen happen, and now have evidence to support what I thought the reason was.

Or am I oversimplifying here?
Theory - every interested authority has tested the st out of it and nobody has found a single credible issue with it.

By the time its a theory, you can pretty much take it to the bank. Exactly when a theory becomes a law, i don't know.

Simpo Two

85,149 posts

264 months

Friday 24th February 2012
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Marf said:
Simpo Two said:
I think 99% of people, if you asked them 'Is a theory something real or just an idea' would vote for 'idea'.
99% of people being mistaken doesn't make something correct.
Absolutely, but if you are talking to ignorant people it's a good idea to try to present it in terms they can understand and learn from.

Mind you I agree that in the specific case of Creationists you're wasting your time because they don't want to understand or learn because they have their own version of reality to snuggle up in.

Marf

22,907 posts

240 months

Friday 24th February 2012
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Agreed on both fronts!

Simpo Two

85,149 posts

264 months

Friday 24th February 2012
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beer

Nimby

4,572 posts

149 months

Friday 24th February 2012
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Simpo Two said:
It might avoid misunderstanding if you dropped the 'theory' part and just called it 'evolution' smile
There is the Fact of evolution - "the distribution of alleles in a population changes over time" - even fundies don't deny that.

Then there are Theories which attempt to explain why this happens. The currently-accepted scientific theory is (more or less) Darwinian natural selection.
Others are Goddidit, Lamarckism, LastThursdayism etc.

deadtom

2,552 posts

164 months

Friday 24th February 2012
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BarnatosGhost said:
Theory - every interested authority has tested the st out of it and nobody has found a single credible issue with it.

By the time its a theory, you can pretty much take it to the bank. Exactly when a theory becomes a law, i don't know.
laws are lower down the heirarchy than theories surely? Laws describe specific phenomena, of which there are many covered by a theory.


deadtom

2,552 posts

164 months

Friday 24th February 2012
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turbobloke said:
Multiply the permeability of free space by the permittivity of free space, take the square root, then the reciprocal, see what pops out.
well i'll be damned... C?

Engineer1

10,486 posts

208 months

Friday 24th February 2012
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Simpo Two said:
Well that's interesting. I use the word theory to mean an idea. Hence 'theoretical', ie not proven. There now seems to be a new meaning to the word which means 'proven'. Perhaps it derives from 'Theorum' as in geometry.
Theoretical means it is predicted by a theory, let say hypothetically that a theory predicts an electromagnetic pulse in a wave length we can't currently detect, it would be theoretical until equipment caught up to detect it, assuming the theory was correct.
Simpo Two said:
Then again there is the 'Theory of Gravity' and we know that gravity certainly exists. Perhaps it means there's a chance we will all fly off into space until it is understood!

So going back to the matter of considering as-yet unknown particles, the guys with the blackboards push equations around and come up with a hypothesis rather than a theory?
The particles can be predicted by a theory as it is possible they fall outside a currently detectable window say are too short lived etc. If the rest of the theory is predicting detectable stuff then the undetectable can be assumed to be happening to and worth looking for.

BarnatosGhost

31,608 posts

252 months

Friday 24th February 2012
quotequote all
deadtom said:
BarnatosGhost said:
Theory - every interested authority has tested the st out of it and nobody has found a single credible issue with it.

By the time its a theory, you can pretty much take it to the bank. Exactly when a theory becomes a law, i don't know.
laws are lower down the heirarchy than theories surely? Laws describe specific phenomena, of which there are many covered by a theory.
Just done some reading. Apparently both theories and laws are beyond credible dispute at the point they are drafted, and both are subject to possible future correction.

Where they differ is that a law provides prediction without explanation. A theory provides prediction AND explanation.

e.g.
The law of gravity will accurately predict the properties of falling bodies. But it won't tell you why.
The theory of evolution will provide predictions on what might happen to a population, and also tell you why.

deadtom

2,552 posts

164 months

Friday 24th February 2012
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BarnatosGhost said:
Where they differ is that a law provides prediction without explanation. A theory provides prediction AND explanation.
yeah, this is my understanding of it.

Also the reason these things are called theories instead of facts is because science is not arrogant enough to tell you it knows everything for certain, and is always willing and able to be proved wrong. Ultimately all the experiments do is disprove the null hypothesis. the rest is just probability.


jimmy156

3,681 posts

186 months

Saturday 25th February 2012
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Richard Dawkins explains it quite well in one of his books, i think in relation to creationists using the fact that it is the "theory" of evolution, i.e its only an idea.

His point was that it is called a theory rather then a fact (or theorem) as it is possible, even though the chances are infinitesimally small, that it could be disproved but at the moment all the evidence (and there is an awful lot of it) says it that it is true.

I think the only "facts" in science come from mathematics and some physics?