Tony c q: Hypothetically speaking, are theories are thought less of due to a faulty school system???

Question

Here is an excerpt from my honors biology textbook last year:

"A theory is a proposed set of statements or principles used to explain a group of facts or natural phenomena—evidences that support the theory. No matter how well one theory fits observations, upon the discovery of new evidences, a new theory might fit them as well or better. In science, the testing, revising, and occasional discarding of theories, new and old, never ends.

As the research continues, it leads scientists to a better understanding of how things work in the world, but not to absolute truth. Scientific discovery is limited by technology. As technology improves, so will the evidence that supports, alters, or disputes theories of all kinds.

In contrast, a scientific law is a conclusion that is made based on repeated scientific experimentation over many years and has become universally accepted by the scientific community. An example of a law would be the law of gravity."

So in the year 2006, an honors 9th grade biology class shows that theories are lesser than laws, when really, in the scientific community, laws don't exist anymore right?

This means that along with all the other outdated information that schools are teaching, new generations are leaving high school without any idea what science has been up to the last 20+ years.

So when a Christian says: "Evolution is just a theory", it isn't that the Christian is dumb, its that the school system is not capable of producing educated individuals.

Opinions?

I meant to say:
Tony c q: Hypothetically speaking, are theories thought less of due to a faulty school system???

And the reason I add Tony C q to the beginning of the question, is so that you can search for tony c and find all of my questions.

Shawn B, I got to a virtual public high school called FLVS. The website is flvs.net, and the class can be found in the demo section. It isn't the AP biology, that one I will take in the future, its the normal one under the science category.

Actually, theory is the highest a hypothesis can hope to become, since laws are no longer really "used".

Meissen, you are correct, but the laws being talked about in my textbook aren't the laws that describe something that occurs. Instead, they talk about the law of gravity, as the one that has physics calculations.

There are several good answers, it will be hard to pick the best one.

Answer 1

I think the textbook does a reasonable job of defining what a theory is, but it needs to put it in perspective by more explicitly stating the significance of theories, and giving some examples. Given that they mention the law of gravity, it seems they should also explain that there is a theory of gravity that attempts to explain the law of gravity. Scientific "laws" are simple statements of the facts that theories explain, and the book should explain that.

People who use the "just a theory" argument have been actively *mis*-educated about science by their church. It is difficult to counter this, due to the nature of religion, but from the excerpt you have printed here, the schools could certainly improve on their effort. Of course, considering that 90% of the kids are only going to gloss the textbook for the answers to the homework questions (assuming they open the book at all), it falls to the teacher to try to explain how science works and why it's important.

Answer 2

It's a little of both. A theory is hardly incontrovertible proof, and yet, religious beliefs have nothing to back them at all - they are based purely on faith. At least science doesn't expect us to belive them on their word alone.

And yet, even laws of science can be overturned at times - it's just a lot harder to do to. For example, conservation of matter was considered to be a law. Now, E=MC^2 has proven it to be incorrect - or at least incomplete. Personally, I find it easier to trust someone who doesn't claim to have the answer to everything - especially if he then refuses to explain it to my satisfaction.

On the other hand, the more science discovers, the more it seems to match the Bible - if considered in the right light (althugh usually not from a strictly fundamentalist viewpoint.)

Educationally, this is what you get when the separation of church and state is none too clear. Education in Australia was much better - they taught Creationism as well as evolutionary theory (and yes, I went to a strict Catholic High School.) Nothing we can do about it, until people stop accepting without reservation whatever they read in a book that is a translation of a translation of a translation...or a original writing of an oral tradition Not that I'm implying that the Good Book is wrong - just that I'd like some verification, or at least an explanation. Until more people want this, however, we're stuck with it. America used to be known worldwide as the place to go to get the best education on the planet. This problem is the reason that people now stay away in droves.

Answer 3

It has less to do with whether something is called a "theory" and more about what "theory" means to a scientist vs. what it means to the average person. For an interesting discussion, read "Is Evolution 'Just a Theory'?" by Lenny Flank.

Oh, and FYI, there are other things that the textbooks get wrong on the other side of the evolution debate as well. For more information on that, see "Survival of the Fakest" by Jonathan Wells. It is an interesting article about how many of the textbook examples of evolution are oversimplifications.

Answer 4

The concept of a scientific law is closely related to the concept of a scientific theory. A scientific law attempts to describe an observation in nature while a scientific theory attempts to explain it.

Yes, gravity is both a law and a theory.

Answer 5

Theories should not be yhought of as inferior to fact. The theory of evolution is not "provable," but DNA evidence has shown that it is extremely likely to be correct. No disrespect to the Bible, though. Remember the Biblical story of Solomon and Sheba, Queen of Ethiopia? Israel has brought in tens of thousands of Ethiopian Jews, who were persecuted during the reign of Haile Selassie. They now occupy positions of authority in Israel, serve proudly in the Israeli Army, are members of parliament, etc. The Bible has come to life. Why can their not be coexistence between evolution, universally taken as truth by science, and the Bible,whichis the basis of all morality in the Judaeo-Christian world?

Answer 6

Umm, all scientists refer to the theory of evolution as "the theory of evolution".

Parts of Einstein's theory of general relativity have been proven, and are even used to help make GPS work, where classical physics fails, but it's still referred to as a theory.

Answer 7

No, according to your post the definition of theory is the best guess based on current data. The Christians inability to grasp that definition is not due to faulty schools it's due to being brainwashed by religion.

Answer 8

Laws DO exist in the scientific community. You just stated that. Therefore your arguement is false. Schools can create intelligent people, it's just that christians choose not to believe the truth

Answer 9

As a teacher, it is not my fault if the student doesn't learn anything after they leave me.

I do feel that my greatest goal is to teach a love of lifelong learning-but I can't force them to actually take in and comprehend new knowledge after they leave my classroom. Things change in every subject-if people think what I teach today is going to be exactly the same in 30 years, then we all have failed miserably.

Answer 10

That was amazing! How did you cut and paste all of that out of your textbook? Star from me.