What makes scientific theory a scientific theory

What's more, the human brain may not have evolved to intuitively understand key scientific concepts such as hypotheses or theories, Kruger said. Most people tend to use mental shortcuts to make sense of the cacophony of information they're presented with every day.

One of those tendencies is to make a "binary distinction between something that is true in an absolute sense and something that's false or a lie," Kruger said. We're continually building our understanding.

All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Already a subscriber? Sign in. Thanks for reading Scientific American. Create your free account or Sign in to continue. See Subscription Options. Go Paperless with Digital. Hypothesis The general public so widely misuses the words hypothesis , theory and law that scientists should stop using these terms, writes physicist Rhett Allain of Southeastern Louisiana University, in a blog post on Wired Science.

Just a theory? Model However, theory isn't the only science phrase that causes trouble. Skeptic When people don't accept human-caused climate change, the media often describes those individuals as " climate skeptics.

Any scientific theory must be based on a careful and rational examination of the facts. Facts and theories are two different things. An important part of scientific theory includes statements that have observational consequences.

A good theory, like Newton's theory of gravity , has unity, which means it consists of a limited number of problem-solving strategies that can be applied to a wide range of scientific circumstances. Another feature of a good theory is that it formed from a number of hypotheses that can be tested independently.

A scientific theory is not the end result of the scientific method; theories can be proven or rejected, just like hypotheses. Theories can be improved or modified as more information is gathered so that the accuracy of the prediction becomes greater over time.

Our results corroborated our hypothesis that aquatic turtles are forced to make more of a trade-off between strength and streamlining than turtles that live on land. In general, the shell shapes of our aquatic turtles were more streamlined but weaker than those of our land turtles, and our mathematical model of natural selection indicated that selection for streamlining was acting more strongly on the aquatic species. As with any idea in science, our results are open to further testing.

For example, other researchers might develop a better model of natural selection that shows that our model was overly simplistic. For now, though, our results can be added as a piece of evidence that is consistent with the predictions of the large explanatory theory of evolution.

If you would like to learn more about this research, the scientific paper describing the work can be found in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. You can see some of the turtle specimens that we used in this research in The Field Museum's exhibition Specimens: Unlocking the Secrets of Life , open through January 7, Skip to main content. Fortunately, falsification—or any other philosophy of science—is not necessary for the actual practice of science.

The physicist Paul Dirac was right when he said , "Philosophy will never lead to important discoveries. It is just a way of talking about discoveries which have already been made. As philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn noted, Newton's laws were retained despite the fact that they were contradicted for decades by the motions of the perihelion of Mercury and the perigee of the moon.

It is the single-minded focus on finding what works that gives science its strength, not any philosophy. Albert Einstein said that scientists are not, and should not be, driven by any single perspective but should be willing to go wherever experiment dictates and adopt whatever works.

Unfortunately, some scientists have disparaged the entire field of science studies, claiming that it was undermining public confidence in science by denying that scientific theories were objectively true. This is a mistake since science studies play vital roles in two areas. The first is that it gives scientists a much richer understanding of their discipline. As Einstein said : "So many people today—and even professional scientists—seem to me like somebody who has seen thousands of trees but has never seen a forest.

A knowledge of the historic and philosophical background gives that kind of independence from prejudices of his generation from which most scientists are suffering.