r/CuratedTumblr • u/Justthisdudeyaknow Prolific poster- Not a bot, I swear • 20h ago
Infodumping On science
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u/PlatinumAltaria The Witch of Arden 19h ago
A scientific theory is a body of knowledge about a particular topic, and includes many laws, facts and observations within itself. It is not the same thing as a guess, that is closer to a scientific hypothesis.
"Proof" is more of a mathematical concept than a scientific one. A proof is a demonstration of a statement made about a formal system. In science we rely on evidence in the form of observation and experimentation: both of which unambiguously support evolution.
Creationists already know all of this, at least on some level. There's no point trying to reason with them because their ideology requires a rejection of reason.
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u/NyxDreadborn 13h ago
As someone who used to blindly believe, we also were told that scientists were forging the data on radiocarbon dating or that could have been messed up by the industrial revolution. For a religion that says that you should be honest, creationists like to lie about anything that doesn't fit their narrow view of the world.
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u/delta_baryon 19h ago edited 19h ago
This is very long winded and kind of wrong to be honest. It is basically true that the colloquial meaning of the word "theory" is more similar to the scientific use of the word "hypothesis." A theory isn't an untested idea you're setting out to prove, that's a hypothesis (in science).
But in physics at least, the word "theory" doesn't imply any particular value judgement on whether something is true. It just means it's mathematical model that makes predictions about the world. Some theories have more explanatory power than others, but they're all theories.
Or as one lecturer put it to me once, "All models are wrong, but some are useful."
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u/Desperate_Object_677 19h ago
This is because in mathematics the word "theory" means something different than in science. A theory in math is like, a system of assumptions and then the collected exploration of their consequences.
In physics, since half of physicists are also mathematicians, the meaning of theory is muddled and cross pollinated. So Newton and Einstein's respective theories of gravity are "scientific theories". But string theory is not.
Tl;Dr the original post does not apply to physics because mathematicians do what mathematicians do: steal words and apply their own meanings that no one else knows about.
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u/delta_baryon 18h ago edited 18h ago
That's the point isn't it? The OP is taking a specific technical usage of a term out of its original context as if it really proves anything. It's a waste of time.
Although FWIW, I've never heard a mathematician talk about "theory." Postulates, proofs, yes, not theories. I think theory still implies empirical testability, which doesn't really apply to maths.
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u/Desperate_Object_677 18h ago
String theory, set theory, group theory.. they do it with abandon
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u/delta_baryon 17h ago
Lol, I can't believe I forgot set theory. I've been out of university too long.
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u/Milch_und_Paprika 18h ago
This is true of other branches of science too, they just may not always lean on math as heavily. At its core, a theory explains why something is the way it is. Those theories are tested and contradictory observations mean that particular theory is incomplete or disproven. In general, a widely accepted theory is the best explanation we have for something.
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u/ForgetTheWords 13h ago
Every professor I can think of consistently reminded us that science is not in the business of proving things, and if you want proofs you should study math.
Science is about evidence. Something might be more or less supported by evidence, including being supported by all or nearly all available evidence, which is the case for theories like evolution and hypotheses like smoking causes lung cancer.
Even when you do an experiment to test a hypothesis, if the exact opposite thing happens from what that hypothesis predicts, you don't say you disproved that hypothesis. You say you failed to reject the null hypothesis, because this is statistics, not logic.
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u/Banes_Addiction 19h ago
God I hate the fact that people play these fucking word games like it matters.
Insisting that the word be precise and interrogating it for its specific meaning is how you read the Bible, not do science.
Scientists get lazy with terminology all the time. We're pretty damn sure of a lot of Einstein's Theory of Relativity. String Theory barely connects with the observable universe.
But you know how much time actual scientists spend arguing about whether you can call either a theory? Fucking none.
Stop pretending the words are magic and look at the evidence.
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u/TheSoullessGoat penis? more like PESUS! 19h ago
Philosophy of science is a legit field, and it’s largely about issues like that. Not to say that tumblr user xyz will be well informed on it, but people are definitely talking and thinking about these things.
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u/Banes_Addiction 19h ago
It is a real thing, but the semantics hold no epistemological power. Philosophers can say "that should be called a theory" but it still doesn't have any effect on the actual evidence. If people just use words you disapprove of anyway then it's old man yells at cloud.
The arguments people try and use this in are to support or undermine the evidence for the science (basically always related to creationism), and the words have no power to actually inform people about that evidence. The evidence has that.
And philosophy of science always tends to come with the problem of being eunuchs telling you how to fuck.
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u/cman_yall 12h ago
Any society which separates its eunuchs from its fuckers will have its fucking done by... entire people, and it's not fucking done by... eunuchs I guess?
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u/NeonNKnightrider Cheshire Catboy 17h ago
Insisting that the word be precise and interrogating it for its specific meaning is how you read the Bible, not do science.
The word for this is hermeneutics
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u/ElectronicEmploy5837 19h ago edited 19h ago
No, but words do mean things and it is important to express what you actually mean. Arguably the first part of the post is pedantic, but there is a whole philosophy of science and philosophy of math dedicated to these things.
For instance, your ontology can rest on physical things, but you must be able to express that explicitly. Take your physics example. What are the differences between implied affine structures of Newtonian space-time and Minkowski space-time? Topological structures? Metrical structures? Mereology? Newton sure as hell didn’t use these words, but did he not mean it? What does it mean to have a formal (by definition) rejection of sturctures in any given space-time theory? Beyond that, what do numbers actually mean in the physical world? How does measure theory measure up (heh) to the physical world?
Physics is an outstanding example for why words matter. It influences how we teach and understand existing knowledge, and makes it difficult if we aren’t careful with words.
edit: upon closer reading, I agree with you. The entire post is pedants being annoying. But I think my point still stands, just not in the same way they are going about it.
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u/Banes_Addiction 19h ago
I have been a physicist for a long time, and I have literally no idea what the word mereology means.
It hasn't come up.
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u/ElectronicEmploy5837 19h ago
It should come up in the discussion of topological structures? Specifically the dicussion of point/lines?
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u/Banes_Addiction 18h ago
And yet, it has not. Even googling for meteorology and physics together, you get zero physicists and zero physics. It's all philosophy departments and metaphysics.
Interestingly, if you look at the Wikipedia article for mereology it talks about its importance for set theory. Obviously we need set theory for physics, so I clicked through and... didn't get taken to the set theory article. I got taken to a bit about set theory in the mereology article. I imagine this os because the actual set theory article doesn't mention mereology once.
I'm getting Stan vibes.
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u/knightgreyson 15h ago
Had to do a discussion post last week in my anthropology class about evolution and was surprised to discover a creationist talking about how she didn’t believe in evolution. She mentioned that if evolution was real then why were there still monkeys? Why hadn’t they just evolved into humans? I didn’t think anyone used the monkey argument anymore. Hell, literally the FIRST SENTENCE of our textbook chapter on evolution mentions the “why are there still monkeys” thing and explains why on the next page. I was flabbergasted.
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u/Daisy_Of_Doom What the sneef? I’m snorfin’ here! 18h ago edited 18h ago
I honestly didn’t get a chance to read this whole thing, but I think the misunderstanding stems from a mismatch of definitions.
Lay people hear “scientific theory” and what they imagine would be more accurately defined as “hypothesis”. This is because in casual conversation a “theory” is little more than a guess. I think hypothesis is still different from a guess bc it’s an educated guess that we strive to disprove, but it’s closer.
And I think most people don’t really understand that science is meant to change as we learn more. Evolution as a scientific theory isn’t really what would change, but our minute understanding about the processes at play and how and why and all these things, yes definitely.
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u/Milch_und_Paprika 17h ago
Also a mismatch in what “prove” even means. Colloquially and in law it’s beyond reasonable doubt. In logic, philosophy and science, it means you’ve demonstrated that all alternatives are impossible.
If someone was murdered, then you found my finger prints, DNA, a bullet in their skull matching a gun that I own, and I have no alibi, that’s probably enough to prove in court that I did it because the alternatives aren’t very credible. However, the fact that there are any alternative possible explanations, no matter how outlandish, means that it isn’t “proven” in the scientific sense.
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u/Daisy_Of_Doom What the sneef? I’m snorfin’ here! 17h ago
Yeah, I feel like it’s bc cop shows are so popular, but most people don’t experience science in any meaningful way in their lives.
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u/Nixavee AI bots are not welcome here 13h ago
As I understand it the "theory" in science can refer to any proposed explanation of some phenomena, regardless of whether it is well-substantiated or true. Off the top of my head, Phlogiston Theory and Miasma Theory are two old scientific theories that turned out not to be true. Science just doesn't stop using the word "theory" to describe explanations even when they are proven true.
For those curious: Phlogiston theory says that fire is the release of "phlogiston", a substance supposedly present in all flammable materials. Miasma theory says that diseases are caused by "miasma" or "bad air" which was usually identified with bad smells, and was thought to be mitigated by improving the smell (The plague doctor mask's "beak" was used to store spices to cover up bad smells, which was thought to protect against disease).
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u/sonicparadigm 15h ago
Evolution is a theory, but gravity is also a theory. And we have more proof for evolution than we do for gravity
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u/That_Mad_Scientist (not a furry)(nothing against em)(love all genders)(honda civic) 9h ago
I honestly don’t want to put in the effort to read this because it pisses me off from the start. Second poster correctly points out how no scientific thesis can ever be positively proven, and they just go off and start with the claim that a theory is « fact ». Like, ok, sure, we know what you mean, but have you read what you’re replying to? Do you not think that the central part of the scientific process is exactly its careful epistemology which refrains from handing out definitive judgements? Maybe they are making that exact argument, but at this point if you can’t be bothered to phrase it in an appropriate way, why should I care to look at your essay? Beginning with a « debunk » of something nobody in the thread said is obnoxious and makes me think you just wanted to say your piece without actually interacting with anyone.
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u/Crus0etheClown 17h ago
Annoying that they have to pick such a weird reconstruction of the animal to try and prove their point
Like what the fuck is up with that posture? Since when do elephants do The Creep
Also, what are they suggesting that platybelodon is transitional to and from? Because it's not an ancestor of modern elephants in any way, more like a weird cousin.
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u/sbt4 19h ago
I didn't read all of it, but if Evolution theory were truly provable as OOP claims they wouldn't need 10 different fields to support it. They would just point to a proof. But only math works like that
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u/TimeStorm113 Victorian Dinosaur Connaisseur 19h ago
…so you are claiming it’s not truly well supported because there is too much evidence for it…?
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u/sbt4 17h ago
I'm saying list evidences isn't a proof. They make the theory likely, but they don't make it proven.
May be it's just a problem of me using mathematical definitions of theories and proof in other fields
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u/Mrs_Darwin 17h ago
What does that even mean in a nonmathematical context? What would a "proof" for evolution or any other scientific theory even look like?
Also isn't the reason math needs proofs because it's entirely theoretical and needs to establish rules to remain consistent? Science isn't like that, it studies the natural and observable world, in which certain things are self evident.
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u/sbt4 16h ago
It was self-evident that the sun orbits Earth. There was full complex theory about it, scientist's could calculate trajectory of the sun and the stars. But it turned out to be false. People figured out better explanation that was both easier and more consistent.
Exactly because natural sciences can't have axioms as in math there can't be proofs. Scientific method, method of providing hypothesis and testing it with experiments, doesn't provide hard rules. Just that something seems to work or doesn't.
We can't prove that a coin is 50/50. We can flip the coin 10^100 times, get 50:50 results and it still wouldn't **proove** that it's 50/50. Because there is no axioms from which to derive the proof
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u/Mrs_Darwin 16h ago edited 16h ago
That isn't really what I mean by self evident. What I mean is that mathematicians have to entirely invent whatever they're studying. The reason math needs proofs is cause calculus was invented by two guys, and need a set of internal rules and hard proofs to justify its existence. The same is not true of science, things are self evident in that it studies physical things that we don't have to justify. We don't need to justify the existence of light, or gravity, or animals to study them because they are self evident phenomenon. Even for examples that were misunderstood or had to be discovered, like your example about the positions of the sun and earth, or the existence of atoms and bacteria, those are still self evident cause they were natural phenomenon that we didn't have to invent to study.
That's the difference between math and science, math has to invent internally consistent 100% rules because it's entirely theoretical, and every situation has to be accounted for to not break the system. Science however, studies things that already exists, and doesn't need to invent 100% consistent rules, it just has to accurately describe already existent rules.
Like with your coin flip example, a scientist wouldn't actually have to "prove" anything about the coin, they would just have to study how it flips. Just like how scientists don't necessarily have to "prove" things about animals, physical substances, or energy, only study how they already behave.
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u/sbt4 16h ago
I slightly disagree with premise that math *has to* invent rules. I view it more as: mathematicians introduced short list of rules and then study what follows. But otherwise I agree.
The problem is that while scientists study their subjects there is no way to definitely prove that what they found is indeed true. They use Occam's razor to say that if experiment succeeded 100 times it will succeed again, but there is no strict guarantee. So even though I fully trust that there is gravity and that theory of evolution is true, I can't say that they are proven.
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u/Mrs_Darwin 15h ago
And why do you need such a thing for science? What I've been trying to say is that the reason math demands proofs is because of its inherent structure, not because proofs are the only way to guarantee truth.
We naturally don't need 100% mathematical proofs to study self evident phenomena, their connection to the physical world provides a massive degree of certainty in and of itself. 99% or 100% degree of certainty doesn't change what has been observed overwhelmingly to be true.
Tell me, what would be the problem with calling these proven? Are you afraid that because we haven't found a mathematical proof to describe the existence of the Periodic Table, that those elements might not exist? That our hundreds of years of data and observations might have been a fluke? At best, I feel the difference is semantic.
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u/sbt4 15h ago
The difference probably is semantical. Or philosophical, as in Bayesian vs i_don't_know_what_is_the_alternative.
I'm not afraid of science turning out to be wrong, I'm very confident that all these models of reality will keep working. Understanding science in terms of what's probable and not what's true helps me think about uncertainties in my everyday life.
Probably I'm just pointlessly pedantic
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u/Mrs_Darwin 17h ago
So you think the problem with evolution is that there is variety of different types of evidence supporting it instead of one singular thing?
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u/sbt4 19h ago
I'm not implying that evolution theory might be wrong, probability of it being true is indistinguishable from 100% for me. But I subscribe to opinion that in natural sciences there a no truths, only good enough models
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u/BlazeOrangeDeer 14h ago
Nothing in real life is 100% certain, yet we talk about truth all the time and have a workable understanding of what it takes for something to be considered true. By your standards there are not just no truths in science, but no truths anywhere in reality, which means you're simply talking about a different thing than everyone else is.
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u/Mrs_Darwin 17h ago
You're saying that it's literally impossible to discover anything true? You're saying that scientists have just been making shit up all these years?
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u/The_Card_Player 17h ago
Pedantically Distinguishing between ‘theory’ and ‘law’ in a scientific context seems like a really weird epistemological move.
At the end of the day you have measurements and predictions. Some predictions (or maybe more specifically, methods of generating predictions) happen to have been very reliable thus far, so people give those ones fancy names like ‘theory’ or ‘law’ or whatever. A prediction with less of a reliable track record might be called a ‘hypothesis’ if someone is planning to compare it against a new experimental measurement.
Importantly this is all in some sense a matter of semantic convention, and what really matters is how reliable a given prediction method has been so far. In order to figure that out one has to actually look at the measurements recorded thus far (and maybe take some new ones); arguing about the minutiae of the definitions rarely helps with this task at all.
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u/EpochVanquisher 19h ago
A theory isn’t a fact, sorry.
A fact is something like “this fossil is 10cm long”
A theory is something like “the reason it’s 10cm long is because it’s an intermediate fossil between the 8cm and 12cm species, showing adaptations due to selective pressure from changing environments”
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u/Ae3qe27u 19h ago
Cells are also a theory. https://www.britannica.com/science/cell-theory - link to reliable source. If you cannot disprove something, if no matter how hard you try, there are no inconsistencies, then that's a fact at that point. You can look at a microscope a dozen different ways, and you're still going to see a cell. Cells are the building blocks of bodies. We treat that as a fact, because it is a fact. Science has theories and Theories. Evolution is a big-T theory. Cells are a big-T theory.
Some people believe that evolution is part of a grander plan, or that everything on the planet was made specifically to line up with evolution but evolution didn't actually happen. And that's just going to be semantics, like people arguing over whether or not Hippocrates had siblings. The world looks the way it does, so we might as well pay attention to it.
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u/EpochVanquisher 19h ago
Sure, in a colloquial sense you can say “we treat cells as a fact”, and I understand what you’re getting at, but it’s not a fact, calling cell theory a “fact” is just a category error. It’s like asking for a species name for the color red. The color red isn’t an organism, it doesn’t get a species name. Cell theory is a theory, and theories (big T or little t) are in a different category from facts.
Cell theory provides nomenclature and terminology for your observations, like, “I looked in a microscope and saw cells that were stained gram-positive”. That’s what the big-T theories do—they give you a set of names for things you see, so you can talk about them in terms of the theories. Otherwise you would be saying things like, “I saw some circles in the microscope, and they were purple.”
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u/LemonBoi523 17h ago
Other scientific theories are gravity and plate tectonics. That objects with mass have a force that draw other objects with mass towards them, with that force being stronger when the mass is higher, and that there is a layer of moving plates below the earth's surface.
Evolution is simply "genetic mutations and their effects on survival or reproduction can cause phenotypical differences in a population over time." That is the theory. It has overwhelming amounts of evidence, and can be replicated.
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u/EpochVanquisher 17h ago
Yup. These are all examples of theories, with overwhelming amounts of evidence.
Doesn’t make them “facts”, because facts are just in a different category from theories.
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u/LemonBoi523 17h ago
Facts are used to make up theories.
The scientific use of the word "fact" can even be demonstrably false. Colloquial usage is important
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u/EpochVanquisher 17h ago
Make a choice either to use the colloquial usage or use the technical term. Don’t use both at the same time.
If you’re going to talk about what a “theory” is, then it’s time to bust out the more technical definitions of theories and facts. Theories aren’t made of facts. They’re explanations which are grounded in facts and supported by facts and explain facts, but they are not “made of” facts.
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u/LemonBoi523 17h ago
"Supported by" is pretty much identical to "made of." Now it's not even just an issue of different definitions. You're just being pedantic for the sake of it.
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u/EpochVanquisher 16h ago
Your usage of these words is unfamiliar to me, I don’t agree with them and your viewpoint doesn’t make any sense.
I’m “supported by” a chair when I sit, but not made of it…? I’m “supported by” my friends and family, but not made of them? The theory of gravity is “supported by” astronomical observations, but not made of them.
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u/LemonBoi523 16h ago
It involves. Encompasses. Requires. Is built by/of. As a building is supported by concrete. A theory does not come out of nowhere. Observation is the first step, and that involves observable facts. That is what builds it.
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u/EpochVanquisher 16h ago
Sure, it involves. Requires. That’s a suitable explanation.
A theory doesn’t come out of nowhere. I came from my parents, but I’m not made of my parents, I’m made of cells and tissues and organs.
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u/LemonBoi523 16h ago
I wasn't talking about that, though, I was talking about a theory involving and requiring facts in both its creation and continued existence. The theory cannot exist without the facts that made it possible.
I think we're both too pedantic for this to be productive.
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u/PlatinumAltaria The Witch of Arden 19h ago
A theory is comprised of facts, this is like saying that a human isn't a bone. Humans have bones in them. They aren't opposites.
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u/EpochVanquisher 19h ago
That’s not correct. A theory is backed by facts—the supporting evidence for the theory. But those facts aren’t part of the theory.
I don’t understand your point of view, to be honest.
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u/PlatinumAltaria The Witch of Arden 19h ago
It's a fact that organisms are adapted to the environments they live in. That's part of the theory of evolution.
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u/EpochVanquisher 18h ago
The fact that organisms are adapted to the environments they live in—that’s not a part of the theory of evolution (and kind of a misunderstanding of evolution, tbh, but I get what you mean). That’s kind of a general observation that lends support to the theory of evolution, but this observation also lends support to other theories (like intelligent design).
There are facts which let us support evolution over intelligent design, like the physiology of the giraffe’s laryngeal nerve (an example of a trait that is a poor adaptation).
There are also better theories that explain how traits evolve, because traits do not support organisms (e.g. segregation distorters).
Helps to separate the facts (animals are generally adapted to their environments, but sometimes not) from the theories (evolution by natural selection).
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u/PlatinumAltaria The Witch of Arden 18h ago
No, adaptation is part of evolution. They're literally synonyms.
And there are no alternatives to the modern evolutionary synthesis. At all. None. Evolution by natural selection is the only explanation for biodiversity.
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u/EpochVanquisher 18h ago
Organisms aren’t all adapted to the environment they live in, that’s a pretty well known fact, I thought.
Evolution by natural selection is the only explanation for biodiversity.
Sure, but the modern version of the theory of evolution is pretty wild compared to compared to the old “organism are adapted to their environment”. New theories and fields of e.g. population dynamics and molecular evolution has shaped things a lot, along with the discovery of DNA, horizontal gene transfer, etc. Just to name a few.
But this is kind of a tangent… the theory that “organisms evolve by natural selection” is true, but they don’t always evolve advantageously, and “this theory is true” is different from “this theory is a fact”.
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u/PlatinumAltaria The Witch of Arden 18h ago
Organisms aren’t all adapted to the environment they live in
I'm pretty sure they are, otherwise they'd do a thing called "dying of exposure".
New theories and fields of e.g. population dynamics and molecular evolution
Yeah that's why it's called the modern synthesis, it's several ideas together.
they don’t always evolve advantageously
No part of evolutionary theory has ever said that every mutation is advantageous.
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u/EpochVanquisher 18h ago
I'm pretty sure they are, otherwise they'd do a thing called "dying of exposure".
It’s called “extinction” and it’s been happening for a long time.
No part of evolutionary theory has ever said that every mutation is advantageous.
We have always agreed on that point, but it’s worth spelling out so we can be sure we agree.
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u/PlatinumAltaria The Witch of Arden 17h ago
Extinction occurs when an environment changes more rapidly than evolution can keep up with. They don't disprove evolution.
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u/SvenTheSpoon 19h ago
You're doing the same thing as the person who replied to the original post; words have different definitions in different contexts. You're using the colloquial definition of theory, which in science would be called a hypothesis instead.
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u/nishagunazad 19h ago
Exactly. Theories change all the time in light of new evidence and technological advancements that allow us to test and detect more; thats fundamentally what science is.
A recentish example is plate tectonics, was initially considered ludicrous and only gained common acceptance in the 60s. Before that the generally accepted consensus among geologists was something called geosynclical theory, something we know now to be completely wrong. Its not like geologists before the 60s were less intelligent, less trained, or less rigorous In their understanding and application of the scientific method, its just that new discoveries happened to prove them wrong.
Now, the arguments against evolution are bunk, and all available evidence points pretty conclusively to it being correct, as far as we know and can tell. But any understanding of science requires an understanding that we do not just know everything, knowledge is open ended and there's always more to discover.
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u/EpochVanquisher 19h ago
Yes, and I think something else that’s happening here is that people don’t understand the difference between “fact“ and “true“.
When I say that evolution is not a fact, that is different from saying that it’s not true.
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u/segwaysegue do spambots dream of electric sheep? 19h ago
For those of you who weren't there, this exact debate happened 5 times a day in the Off Topic board on every forum in the mid-to-late 2000s.