Top Gun wrote: Firstly, I've heard some people refer to evolution as "just a theory." I think you're confusing the general usage of the word with its scientific definition. In science, a theory is a set of principles, equations, or statements that explain a group of phenomena, have been repeatedly and thoroughly tested, and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena. Scientific theories come about only after hundreds of hours of research and experimentation and must be independently and widely verified in order to be generally accepted.
this is very very wrong. i think your semantics would make the discussion more muddled than it already is. I think a big part of the ID problem is that people do not understand science and more so - epistemology.
terminology such as "theory" or "scientific theory" is irrelevant to what the scientific method actually entails. your usage is incorrect. a scientific theory is ANY conjecture that attempts to solve some problem or explain some phenomena.
The nomenclature used to describe the theory has no bearing on the method or truth-vale of its content, except in the case of what is called a "law" (such as a gravity). However, even such "laws" remain always conjectural since it is always possible for some refutation to occur. The only reason such theories are even considered laws is because their conjectural content is not currently problematic. Newton's physics was considered scientific law until Kepler and later Einstein saw there were still unsolved
problems.
What separates scientific knowledge from ordinary knowledge is that scientific theories will ALWAYS be refutable. That is what makes them scientific.
Also, you have got the methodology wrong (as have others in this thread). Science does not begin with research or observation. Science begins with problems and the need to solve them. The fact that our theories may be used as predictors is not the aim of science. The aim might better be thought of searching for truth or knowledge. Prediction is how we
test our theories, not the ultimate aim.
Further, since falsifiability is the criterion of science versus pseudo-science, the scientific method is falsification, not "verification". sometimes we may speak of independent or peer review, which corroborates the tests of theory. but these independent tests will always be tests which would refute (falisify) the theory if it were incorrect.
Top Gun wrote: It's a rare thing indeed that something that reaches the level of a theory is competely and utterly overturned; while new developments may require significant additions and revisions (as Einstein's did to Newton's theory), the original theory usually holds true in at least some circumstances or situations.
wrong. theories are overturned ALL the time and some times they are major paradigm shifts. it may be relatively rare for scientific "laws" to be overturned but there have been instances in history where new theories overturned older "laws" in sensational fashion - such as the heliocentric paradigm shift.
i agree with you that people here are failing to understand the scientific method, but i do not agree with your semantics. i have never heard anyone elevate the term "theory" to some kind of higher status as if calling it a "theory" made it somehow more true. i don't think its useful to do so.
