[unspun]

Theories can NEVER be proved!

But wait, Condorman, if you please. I confess I didn't go very far in the sciences, but I do remember something from my grade school education:

The empirical process moves from hypothesis, to observation, to theory, to experiment, to fact. (I was immediately stubborn about this as a child, in saying that there had to be observation before a hypothesis, too. Even now, I believe that was right, while qualifying that exercises of the imagination can substitute for observation.)

Did they change it after all these centuries? Like "The New Math?" Anyone care to address?

Highest reg's

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for your post!

As far as I know, scientific theories never achieve proven status in the way that mathematics does. The evidence for or against the theory accrues over time.

For example, even though General Relativity is known to be correct to 1 part in 10¹⁴ and Newtonian theory is known to be correct to 1 part in 10⁷, both are still theories.

[Condorman]

The empirical process moves from hypothesis, to observation, to theory, to experiment, to fact...Did they change it after all these centuries?

I don't know how well you remember the mid 18th century, but it was about that time that-- Okay, the short answer is that the process you describe is not correct.

The scientific process is designed to model reality. The more observations we gather, the more accurate our approximations can be. Theories and hypotheses are our attempts to wrap an explanation around a bunch of facts. The theory itself is not fact.

You might be interested to learn what makes a good theory. But keep in mind, that, as Stephen Hawking writes:

"Any physical theory is provisional, in the sense that it is only a hypothesis: you can never prove it. No matter how many times the results of experiments agree with some theory, you can never be sure that the next time the result will not contradict the theory."

[gomaaa]

I confess I didn't go very far in the sciences, but I do remember something from my grade school education: The empirical process moves from hypothesis, to observation, to theory, to experiment, to fact. (I was immediately stubborn about this as a child, in saying that there had to be observation before a hypothesis, too. Even now, I believe that was right, while qualifying that exercises of the imagination can substitute for observation.)

I talked about this some back in post 1563, I think before you were posting a bunch. Check it out and if you disagree, please let me know.