Concept explainers
What is likely being misunderstood by someone who says, 'But that’s only a scientific theory'?
To Explain: It could be a misunderstanding when a person says that it’s just a scientific theory.
Explanation of Solution
Introduction:
The person is confusing a theory with a hypothesis. These terms are often used interchangeably but have very different meanings.
A person is most probably confusing a hypothesis (which means an unverified assumption) with a scientific theory. A scientific theory is defined as gist of a huge amount of experimental observation which contains properly tested and verified hypothesis. Simply speaking, a hypothesis is a scientific, testable, educated guess whereas a theory is a hypothesis proved/tested multiple times hence more prone to be correct.
Just because something is a theory, does not imply it cannot be wrong.
Essentially, a lot of data of hypothesis is tested before something is labeled as a theory. Hence, theories are very accurate even though they might not be fully accurate.
Conclusion:
So, the person is misunderstanding a theory with a hypothesis.
Chapter 1 Solutions
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