Re: OT - *Some* Canadians get it . . . .

Sorry Mike, but I cannot concur that a theory is a fact.
Thanks but you don't have to apologize to me. Perhaps you
misunderstood me because a theory is definitely NOT fact. I said it
was "like" fact which it is. These are the formal definitions:

"In science, a theory is a mathematical or logical explanation, or a
testable model of the manner of interaction of a set of natural
phenomena, capable of predicting future occurrences or observations of
the same kind, and capable of being tested through experiment or
otherwise falsified through empirical observation. It follows from
this that for scientists "theory" and "fact" do not necessarily stand
in opposition. For example, it is a fact that an apple dropped on
earth has been observed to fall towards the center of the planet, and
the theories commonly used to describe and explain this behaviour are
Newton's theory of universal gravitation (see also gravitation), and
General relativity.

In scientific usage, a theory does not mean an unsubstantiated guess
or hunch, as it can in everyday speech. A theory is a logically self-
consistent model or framework for describing the behavior of a related
set of natural or social phenomena. It originates from or is supported
by experimental evidence (see scientific method). In this sense, a
theory is a systematic and formalized expression of all previous
observations that is predictive, logical and testable. In principle,
scientific theories are always tentative, and subject to corrections
or inclusion in a yet wider theory. Commonly, a large number of more
specific hypotheses may be logically bound together by just one or two
theories. As a general rule for use of the term, theories tend to deal
with much broader sets of universals than do hypotheses, which
ordinarily deal with much more specific sets of phenomena or specific
applications of a theory."

So the Theory of Universal Gravitation, for example, is "like" a
fact. That doesn't mean it can change over time but it's not like
what flipper describes. In fact, flipper is just totally wrong (which
is not surprising).

Mr Soul


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