Scientific Theory vs Law - And Everything Between
I am going to try to explain basic differences between scientific theory, law, facts and hypothesis. There are lot of misconceptions about these so I thought I’d try to explain it as best I can.
I am no scientist but I do have friends (from both sides of Atlantic) that are so I pick their brains every once in a while. Also, I still remember this from the science class when I went to school and I did great deal of researching about the subject through out the years.
Amazingly, scientific theory is something all scientists agree on, with no exception regardless of geographical location. So this article will not be me speculating. These are coming from the actual scientists themselves.
We all heard following phrase: “Oh it’s just a theory and not a fact.”
Theory in every day life is indeed just a speculation, but in scientific world theory is something totally different as we will see from the following article.
It’s important for a somewhat educated person living in 21st century to know what scientific theory is and be able to name basic differences between Law and Theory. This is elementary knowledge but people forget these things quickly. That’s why “Are you smarter than a Fifth Grader” show works so well.
Lets take matters from the beginning and see how scientists form theories.
Chronological step by step:
- Observational Facts - Are collection of data through observation methods. If I drop the ball from my hand it will fall to the ground. If I repeat this many times, I will get same results over and over. Ball will fall to the ground every time. This is an observational fact. Some more observational facts: Rivers running in certain direction, bees pollinating flowers, etc..
- Law - Getting back to ball fall. if I get same results with other objects after repeated experiments, I can form some kind of law with probable certainty. This is Newton’s Law of Gravity. However, this law does not explains why did ball drop on the floor. It just describes the event. That’s it. There’s not much difference between law and observational facts. You could in a sense say that Scientific Law is just body of predictable observational facts. Nothing more.
- Hypothesis - After the law is formed, scientist will try to explain it by observation and repeated experiments. Eventually they will form different hypothesis. Hypothesis are ideas that could be falsified, changed and modeled as the new evidence comes in. Does the ball falls because earth is bigger than the ball? Does the ball falls because there’s an invisible force that is attracting the ball towards the earth? Will the ball fall at the same speed in vacuum? Etc… Scientists will continue to hypothesize until there’s no new evidence to dispute their hypothesis. But they’re not done yet. Hypothesis has to pass scrutiny of grueling tests under different conditions and repeated experiments. All of those experiments has to conform to their proposed hypothesis every time. If they don’t, hypothesis is thrown away and the scientist moves on.
- Scientific Theory comes the last. Only if hypothesis passes all of the above stages, it can be formed into Scientific Theory. Scientific Theory is crowning achievement in science. In science, there’s nothing higher than theory. It’s Creme De La Cream. You can describe Scientific Theory as following: Theory is a comprehensive explanation of natural world that is supported by factual observations, independently testable and repeated experiments. Theory is explanation. So theory contains facts and laws. Laws and facts are part of the theory.
But it doesn’t end there. Theory then has to be peer reviewed. It will be bombarded by skepticism from other scientists with their own hypothesis and theories from same field of studies.
Who do you think is the major debunker of scientific theory? It’s other scientists. They will try to debunk and disprove new theories and replace them with theories of their own all the time. It’s a constant battle.
Every scientist wants to get recognized and possibly get Nobel Prize, but you don’t get Noble Prize by just confirming already established theory. You want to debunk it and replace it with better theory or at least make a noticeable correction (like Einstein did with Newton’s) worth the Noble Prize.
Scientific theories are constantly evaluated, peer reviewed, bombarded and critically examined by other scientist. That’s how we get well established theories. Just imagine scientific theory that passed all that scrutiny and criticism for hundred years. It’s the closest thing to the truth and explanation of natural world as we know it. That’s why all well established theories are almost unshakable and last for long time. Theory of Evolution and Cell Theory are one of them. Plate tectonics, General Relativity, Atomic Theory are all examples of well established theories.
Theory Of Evolution (by Natural Selection) being the most criticized and attacked, withstood test of time for 150 years! That is more testing, evaluating, examining, collecting evidence than any other well established theory we have.
The fact that some us (who don’t practice science professionally 14 hours or so a day, every day!) just don’t believe part (or whole) of it has nothing to do with theory being true or not. As long as it’s accepted within scientific community (you know… people who dedicated their whole lives to theories like these) theory will remain true. Public should be educated of course, but if you as a non-scientist want and try to debunk or argue some theory and you think you have the knowledge, roll the dice, write the paper and see if your thesis withstands same scrutiny as the theory you’re trying to debunk.
I cannot just tell to the carpenter how to make a table. Especially If I have never picked up a wood saw in my life.
Scientific Theories are less certain than laws. That’s true, but that’s only because law is just bunch of observational facts. Nothing else. It’s meaningless without the theory. It doesn’t provide any explanation. Theory of Evolution for example can never be a fact since it’s comprised of many facts and biological laws. It’s like a deck of cards. Theory Of Evolution being the deck and cards being the facts. It would make no sense to call the whole deck “a card”.
As the new evidence comes in theory will get tweaked and improved. But that’s the beauty of it. It will get modeled into comprehensive set of explanations of our natural world.
Think about this. Even if you see, with your own eyes, something that contradicts well established theory, it would not mean much. Eyes can deceive and we all know that brain is the best 3D software there is. Schizophrenics for example see and hear voices that ARE real to THEM. That doesn’t make it real. Scientific method is the only and the best way we know how to explain actual reality since it requires independent testing under different conditions regardless if public agrees with it or not. It’s up to science and teachers to explain their theories so we can understand them well. I agree that is something scientists and teachers have not been doing a great job at, but that’s for the whole new article.