Comments on: Discarding the terms “Hypothesis”, “Theory”, and “Law”

By: Sascha Vongehr

Sascha Vongehr — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 09:28:26 +0000

Is that the angry atheists’ attempt at getting rid of God’s laws of nature? Evolution is only a model? Hmm, actually, maybe he has a point.

By: Dan J. Andrews

Dan J. Andrews — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 19:51:29 +0000

Misuse of words like “theory” and “hypothesis” serve as red flags that let you know a bit about a person’s general scientific competence.

By: natural cynic

natural cynic — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 16:51:21 +0000

The use of adjectives should be encouraged when using the word theory: scientific theory is good; crackpot theory and conspiracy theory – not so much.

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 16:18:26 +0000

Dean, actually, people have been fighting (low level and sparse fighting) over the word model for years.

My friend Jim Moore (the primatologist, not the guy with the Aquatic Ape site) wrote this some time ago which I think is worth looking at: http://anthro.ucsd.edu/~jmoore/publications/Moore1996SavChimpModels.pdf

By: dean

dean — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 15:48:23 +0000

Seems like many of these terms are used in science the way “robust” was used in statistics for many years: often and only rarely precisely.
As an outsider to the scientific community (statistician), a question: how long would a change to wide-spread use of “model” take to be accepted? I can’t imagine it being quickly enough to make any practical difference, but I do tend to the cynical side.

By: Eric Lund

Eric Lund — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 15:40:37 +0000

Language is invariably imprecise, so no matter what terms you use for what are now called hypotheses, theories, and laws, you will have problems. “Model” already has problems of its own: particle physicists refer to the generally accepted theory of how the various elementary particles are related to each other as the “Standard Model”, but for most other physicists, a model is something you code up on a computer and use to run simulations.

There is at least one instance of the current scientific use of “law” being mocked in popular culture. Bugs Bunny strolls out along the underside of a tree limb and brags that in an animated cartoon, “You can even defy the law of gravity!” He promptly falls on his head (per the rule that cartoon gravity turns on when a character notices that it should have an effect) and quips, “Unfortunately, I never studied law.”

By: The Phytophactor

The Phytophactor — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 14:20:48 +0000

Just because theory, hypothesis, and law are widely misunderstood and misused, I fail to see the benefit of replacing them with an ill defined all purpose term like model. In biology “law” is almost gone anyways. But the number of times you hear evolution is only a theory shows the level of science illiteracy. Part of the problem is that even science doesn’t use these terms in a consistent way just as medicine can’t seem to get the difference between disease and disorder correct.