*cough* Kinda beat you to the punch there, man.
-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
When does theory become fact?
- Thread starter Desert Snake
- Start date
Sorry. I do that all the time.
Woodrow LI
IB Ambassador
My opinion. Facts are Theories that have been replicated without fail.
As there is no way to replicate every possibility, there are no "Absolute Facts" only theories with a believable, acceptable track record.
It is not a case of absolutes but the preponderance of evidence. Facts only exist as to what has happened. It is a fact the sun appeared to rise this morning. It is theory it will rise tomorrow.
As there is no way to replicate every possibility, there are no "Absolute Facts" only theories with a believable, acceptable track record.
It is not a case of absolutes but the preponderance of evidence. Facts only exist as to what has happened. It is a fact the sun appeared to rise this morning. It is theory it will rise tomorrow.
Yerda
Veteran Member
Most uses of the word 'fact' would suggest that it was a fact before it was confirmed to be so. The first line from the wiki entry:
A fact is something that has really occurred or is actually the case
It is a correspondence with truth rather than knowledge. The first paragraph from SEP:
Facts, philosophers like to say, are opposed to theories and to values, they are the objects of certain mental states and acts, they make truth-bearers true and correspond to truths, they are part of the furniture of the world.
There is such a thing as "reasonable certainty". You could make an argument at night that, there is a non-zero possibility that the sun has collapsed into a black hole. But that is like living in a town where a horse riding competition is going on, hearing hoofs around the corner, and assuming it's a Zebra.
Of course, if you're a Creationist, you assume it's a Unicorn.
Ultimatum
Classical Liberal
There are two definitions. When I replied, I was understanding the statement using one of the definitions when the poster meant another definition. It is a simple mistake to make.
In ancient Greece, it was thought that geocentrism was true. It was common knowledge. It was a fact. (I used this definition when reading the statement)
In ancient Greece, the reality ALSO was that geocentrism was false. It was flawed knowledge. Earth's orbit around the sun was also fact. (You used this definition when reading the statement)
As you can see, we have to contradicting ideas that can be listed as 'facts'. A simple misunderstanding is all.
Yerda
Veteran Member
Agreed.
Sapiens
Polymathematician
A short side trip:
Aristarchus of Samos was the first person recorded to challenge the geocentric model, suggesting a heliocentric universe in the third century BCE. He had little following, most favoring Ptolemy's theory . that placed all celestial bodies orbiting around the Earth, with epicycles introduced to compensate for the retrograde motion of planets.
The ancient Greeks reasoned that if the Earth moved around the sun, the stars should appear to shift their positions from one part of the year to the next, a phenomenon they failed to observe. They reasoned that, alternatively, the stars would have to be so ridiculously far away that the shift in position was too small to be seen by the naked eye, which would make for a ludicrously large empty space between the most distant planet known at the time (Saturn) and the "fixed stars".
Some late medieval scholars, notably Nicholas of Cusa and Nicolas Oresme, brought up the possibility that the Earth might move, but Copernicus revived heliocentrism in 1514, drawing on Aristarchus. Galileo promoted the Copernican theory, provoking hostility from the RCC who denounced it as heresy. Probably due to this controversy, Copernicus's book was listed on the Index (the list of books banned by the RCC) between 1616 and 1758 and it was not until 1992, that the RCC reversed itself, formally, and vindicated Galileo.
outhouse
Atheistically
Part of your confusion may be that Legion is right technically. And he qualified it here [Theory is too nuanced to get into here]
That is just the way a scientific theory is defined.
Now, enough facts may be compiled that evolution is a fact, but it does not change the scientific definition from theory to fact ever.
This is an excellent example of the monumental importance of perspective and the faulty nature of "common sense". To someone on the planet, with no way to measure distances, it is entirely logical and sensible to assume that the planet is the only fixed point, because to us the only things that move are what's above our heads.
Though, the Bible and such still don't get a pass for assuming the earth was flat, despite the fact it is not at all that difficult to get to a high enough place and see the curvature.
Sapiens
Polymathematician
Sorry, I agree with the point that you are making, but the flat earth paradigm is a dog that doesn't hunt. Pythagoras in the 6th century BCE, knew the world was a sphere and Eratosthenes measured the diameter of the globe with remarkable accuracy somewhere around 200 BCE. Blame Washington Irving's bio of Columbus for popularizing this canard. As I have observed in another thread, any sailor knows the sea surface is curved.
Last edited:
No, no. I know that. I am talking specifically about the Abrahamic faiths, as in the Old Testament it quite clearly states the world is flat.
nazz
Doubting Thomas
In a word: never
Usually, you start with an hypothesis about some aspect of some theory, design an experiment that is informed by theory and interpret the results according to theory. The Scientific Method version of science is so outdated that even the AAAS and similar groups have been trying to change how it is taught and books by e.g., James B. Conant in the 40s and 50s were already trying to address the popular misconceptions while philosophers of science and scientists had found the heart of The Scientific Method had failed fantastically and were struggling to replace the naive positivism of the 19th century.
Most scientific research doesn't refer to theories except insofar as the theory concerned is more or less the field of research of which the study seeks to contribute to.
Not always. The most spectacular failure of the "Hypothesis -> Experiment -> Theory" model (and more complicated versions) was modern physics. The debate over the nature of light was nothing new, Newton's corpuscular theory having been refuted first by Young's experiment and then by Maxwell and other work in classical electrodynamics. Light was a wave. That it was part of the electromagnetic spectrum was a further refinement of the kind I think you refer to. Einstein's solution to the photoelectric effect (that light is composed of "particles" of energy he called quanta) was not a refinement, but a contradiction. Physics of the time held that there was matter, and there were things like light and sound that propagated through matter (more precisely, through a medium) but did not have any existence apart from the effects on the medium. More importantly, particles were fundamentally different from waves, and something was either a wave or a particle. So on the one hand we had all this evidence that light was a wave, which meant it couldn't be a particle. On the other, we had experiments that could only be explained if light was a particle.
It turned out that the problem wasn't with experiments, and the solution wasn't refinements. It was recognizing that almost the entirety of physics was at its core WRONG. The framework itself had dictated that light prove to be a particle or wave and thus experiments sought to determine which. The only reason the physics community didn't spend decades split into "particle" vs. "wave" camp was the simplicity of the experiments and the obvious impossibility of reconciling them with physics (what we now call "classical physics").
The biomedical model of mental illness is another example in which it was not findings and research which changed the dominant theory but various other factors, and after 30+ years of research to demonstrate the basic postulates set down by the founders of diagnostic, biomedical psychiatry (particularly with the publication of the DSM III) we've found more counter-evidence than evidence. Other examples could be easily marshaled.
Most of evolutionary psychology is bunk. It's part of evolutionary theory. Even if we limit ourselves to evolutionary biology, though, a central component is under increasing debate, namely “fitness” :
"the fact is that there is a major problem in the foundations of evolutionary theory which remains unsolved, and which continues to give life to the debate. The definition of fitness remains in dispute, and the role of appeals to fitness in biologists’ explanations is a mystery."
Mills, S. K., & Beatty, J. H. (2006). The propensity interpretation of fitness. In E. Sober (Ed.) Conceptual Issues in Evolutionary Biology (3rd Ed.) MIT Press.
"Out of all this, the principle of selection...has received major attention and the discussions in this area have led to many treatments abundant in the scientific literature. Beyond no doubts, this is for several reasons, such as the weaknesses in the definition of ‘‘who’’ is carrying out this selection, or exactly ‘‘what’’ causes it to come by? What is it exactly that is selected for? And if fitness, then how is this fitness defined? Debates in this area have not ended and are not likely to be settled for years..."
Nielsen, S. N., & Emmeche, C. (2013). Ontic Openness as Key Factor in the Evolution of Biological Systems. In Evolutionary Biology: Exobiology and Evolutionary Mechanisms (pp. 21-36). Springer.
and so on. Evolutionary theory is so broad that in one sense were there not serious debates about numerous issues we’d have reason for very serious concern. Evolutionary theory is not only the framework wherein which work in biology, astrobiology, chemistry, complexity & computational sciences, etc. is carried out but the basis for fields like evolutionary psychology and large parts of systems sciences.
Gravity, however, is much, much more constrained. In one sense it is far better understood than evolutionary theory, because it is so much smaller and the problems with it so well identified. In another sense, it is far less understood because in general relativity it really isn’t a “thing” at all (not a field, nor a force, but a series of equations modelling the way spacetime curvature “tells” matter how to move). Also, while Newtonian gravity continues to be useful across the sciences, it is simply wrong, and we know this. Evolutionary theory has grown, has become more and more refined, has spawned sub-disciplines in which hypotheses are tested and models created, but it has never received anything like the challenge Newtonian gravity did: all the changes were more or less the kind of “refinements” you refer to.
Newtonian gravity fails as we approach two thresholds, but it fails to be useful. It is always and everywhere wrong, and no successful unification between gravitation in GR and QM exists.
gnostic
The Lost One
I think to understand your question, you have to understand terminology of "theory" and "fact", before you can even begin to debate them together.
Not only that. You have to understand both of these terms in their scientific contexts, and not everyday, non-scientific definitions.
The (scientific) theory is an scientific explanation to a phenomena, whether it be natural or artificial (like computers), that are verifiable through observation (that could be through repeated and rigorous testings, or through empirical evidences).
Fact is something (phenomena) that can be verified to be true or false. And in science, evidence is preferable usage to fact.
In another word, (scientific) theory is observation of and well-defined explanation to "fact".
Of course, not all scientific theory can use empirical evidences, for examples, superstring theory and M-theory. These theories rely more on mathematical model, like set of complex equations to prove the theory to be "scientific", and they are currently untestable.
Evolution is not theoretical science, because it doesn't rely on mathematical proofs, and the conclusion to the theory can be reach through verifiable evidences.
Skwim
Veteran Member
As does the New Testament; at least it implies it to degree that would be hard to deny.
[url=http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Biblical_flat_earth_claims]source[/URL]
joshua3886
Great Purple Hippo
"General Unified Theory". That means people of differing religions, creeds, ethnicities and cultures can clearly see the evidence for something if they are willing to look at the evidence without putting their fingers in their ears and going "la la la, I can't hear you".
"A scientific theory is a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world, based on a body of facts that have been repeatedly confirmed through observation and experiment. Such fact-supported theories are not "guesses" but reliable accounts of the real world."
joshua3886
Great Purple Hippo
It's a magical line of sight, that's how it works. With a magical being flying into the sky you have to calculate the magic ratio in your science. The formula for magic is as follow: G(6^7)+32/12=God did it.As does the New Testament; at least it implies it to degree that would be hard to deny.
[url=http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Biblical_flat_earth_claims]source[/URL]
Trantorfuzz
Member
1. Theories don't become facts. Scientific facts are repeatable observations. Scientific theories are explanations for repeatable observations, aka evidence.
2. A theory becomes more well-supported as it makes testable predictions about the evidence that one will find that is consistent with the theory.
3. If too much evidence is found that is inconsistent with the theory, the theory has to be discarded.
4. If a new theory, B, explains all the evidence that theory A does *and more*, and is otherwise as consistent and parsiomious as theory A, then theory A gets discarded.
For example, the *law* of gravitation summarizes a set of repeatable observations about one way in which physical bodies attract each other. But the *theory* of gravitation attempts to explain said attraction. From the science popularizations I've read, Einstein's General Relativity has held up very well in the face of enormous amounts of evidence, and explains gravity as a consequence of the curvature of space-time.
As for evolution, it's a FACT that all life on Earth is related in a literal sense. The modern version of the THEORY evolution explains species diversification with natural selection and genetic drift. The scientific evidence against this theory is so lacking, and evidence for it from comparative anatomy, comparative genetics, and the fossil record is so overwhelming, that there is no academic debate about it among working biologists at accredited universities. So-called "Intelligent Design" and "Creation Science" are frauds, pure and simple.
To summarize: fact = repeatable observation
theory = explanation for same
2. A theory becomes more well-supported as it makes testable predictions about the evidence that one will find that is consistent with the theory.
3. If too much evidence is found that is inconsistent with the theory, the theory has to be discarded.
4. If a new theory, B, explains all the evidence that theory A does *and more*, and is otherwise as consistent and parsiomious as theory A, then theory A gets discarded.
For example, the *law* of gravitation summarizes a set of repeatable observations about one way in which physical bodies attract each other. But the *theory* of gravitation attempts to explain said attraction. From the science popularizations I've read, Einstein's General Relativity has held up very well in the face of enormous amounts of evidence, and explains gravity as a consequence of the curvature of space-time.
As for evolution, it's a FACT that all life on Earth is related in a literal sense. The modern version of the THEORY evolution explains species diversification with natural selection and genetic drift. The scientific evidence against this theory is so lacking, and evidence for it from comparative anatomy, comparative genetics, and the fossil record is so overwhelming, that there is no academic debate about it among working biologists at accredited universities. So-called "Intelligent Design" and "Creation Science" are frauds, pure and simple.
To summarize: fact = repeatable observation
theory = explanation for same