[PatrickHenry]

I put some research into those definitions, and tried to limit them more to scientific than lay uses. If you can suggest specific language changes, I would be glad to consider them.

We need a thread devoted to working up definitions we can all agree on, and then we can forever link to the final result. What we end up with may be what you already have, or it may get tweaked a bit. It should probably be posted in the smokey backroom or something. I'm mulling it over.

[BMCDA]

Good idea. I think it should also be pointed out that science is much more conservative with its definitions than the vernacular and that the definition of "theory" as it is used in science is the original one, since it's only a rather recent phenomenon that nowadays every Tom, Dick and Harry "has a theory" or thinks that the ToE is "only a theory".

[longshadow]

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