Someone posted Gould’s explanantions of the terms (as I did in a post, influenced by jhc, awhile ago) … so far, they are the best I have read.
That’s part of the problem, scientific definitions are not always similar to everyday definitions … such as “theory” or “fact”.
You’re so smart.
Isn’t a hypothesis an explanation of naturally occuring events.
For example - a ball falls when dropped, a hypothesis is an explanantion as to why the ball fell. You do experiments to test if your hypothseis is correct. After an extensive investigation through experimentation a theory is developed which is a general explanantion based on experimentation as to why a natural event occurs.
A scientific law is simply a statement of relationship (usually mathematical) as to why something in nature happens but does not explain why it happened.
Newton’s law of gravity gives the mathematical relathionship between the mass of a pair of objects and their distance from one another and Einstein’s theory of relativitiy explains why two bodies are attracted.
Thus, Intellgent design is a philosophical explanation of where things (nature) came from where evolution is an explanantion based on observation and experimentation. Both interesting topics.
Isn’t a hypothesis an explanation of naturally occuring events.
No.
A Natural law says “such and such will happen”, such as Newton’s Laws of Motion. Then, people will “hypothesize” why … and if a hypothesis gains so much supprt, it is given “theory status”. Laws say what will happen, theories explain why.
A hypothesis is a statement, based on research, where evidence is used to increase the supprt (truthfulness) of that statement.
Hypothesis can explain natural occurring events, but the statement “Most high school freshman prefer labrador retrievers to dalmations”. The statement is a hypothesis because it “can be tested”. The statement “Labradors are the coolest dogs”, is not a hypothesis (can’t be tested … unless coool refers to body temp), but rather an opinion.
I think we’re saying the same thing. A person observes a natural phenemenon (sp?), comes up with a guess or explanation (hypothesis) as to why that certain thing is happeneing and then devises experiments to test the hypothesis. If extensive experimentation verifies the hypothesis a theory is developed.