I think this passage is a wonderfully eloquent explaination of the misconceptions around the word "theory" when used in the scientific sense, compared with the use in the colloquial sense. It is taken from Consilience: The Unity Of Knowledge by the excellent science writer Edward O. Wilson.
Quote:
Theory: a word hobbled by multiple meanings. Taken alone without a or the, it resonates with erudition. Taken in everyday context, it is shot through with corrupting ambiguity. We often hear that such and such an assertion is only a theory. Anyone can have a theory; pay your money and take your choice among the theories that compete for your attention. Voodoo priests sacrificing chickens to please spirits of the dead are working with a theory. So are millenarian cultists watching the Idaho skies for signs of the Second Coming. Because scientific theories contain speculation, they too may seem just more guesswork, and therefore built on sand. That, I suspect, is the usual postmodernist conception: Everyone's theory has validity and is interesting. Scientific theories, however, are fundamentally different. They are constructed specifically to be blown apart if proved wrong, and if so destined, the sooner the better. "Make your mistakes quickly" is a rule in the practice of science. I grant that scientists often fall in love with their own constructions. I know; I have. They may spend a lifetime vainly trying to shore them up. A few squander their prestige and academic political capital in the effort. In that case - as the economist Paul Samuelson once quipped - funeral by funeral, theory advances.
Quantum electrodynamics and evolution by natural selection are examples of successful big theories, addressing important phenomena. The entities they posit, such as photons, electrons, and genes, can be measured. Their statements are designed to be tested in the acid washes of skepticism, experiments, and the claims of rival theories. Without this vulnerability, they will not be accorded the status of scientific theories. The best theories are rendered lean by Occam's razor, first expressed in the 1320s by William of Occam. He said, "What can be done with fewer assumptions is done in vain with more," Parsimony is a criterion of good theory. With lean, tested theory we no longer need Phoebus in a chariot to guide the sun across the sky, or dryads to populate the boreal forests. The practice grants less license for New Age dreaming, I admit, but it gets the world straight.
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Perhaps now you will think twice before bandying about the phrase "it's only a theory".
What most people would refer to as a theory in everyday speach, is referred to as a hypothesis in the scientific community.
Any thoughts?