Normally I avoid articles with titles like “Ten Things That…” but, it’s a slow day, io9 is a science site, and ‘Ten Words that Scientists say Everybody Uses Incorrectly’ kind of intrigued me because everybody includes me, and if there are words I am using incorrectly, I want to know, and if I wasn’t using any of the words on the list incorrectly, I would get to feel really smart.
Well, I agree that too many people use ‘proof’ when they really mean evidence, and it’s a darned shame that people haven’t really mastered the concept of ‘geological time.’ I was pleased to learn the difference between a scientist’s definition of ‘statistically significant’ (which is statistically noticeable) and the way everybody uses it, which refers to something that is actually statistically significant. On ‘natural’ and ‘organic’ I think they just need to realize that people are not really talking about science when they use those terms, they are talking about food. You don’t need to be quite as intellectually rigorous when you’re talking about food. ‘Quantum Weirdness’ is not a phrase I’m likely to use incorrectly because I’m not likely to use it at all. The concept is either way over my head, or it’s nonsense, and since serious scientists take it seriously, I have to assume it’s not nonsense.
But, where they really nailed me was on the use of the word ‘theory.’ The article says something like ‘most people, when they say ‘theory’ mean ‘an idea’ or ‘a supposition.’ I’m probably even worse than that. When I say “I’ve got a theory…” it means I’ve got a guess. Pure speculation. Based on real data, of course, I’m not a flake, but seasoned to taste with a bit of wishful thinking or paranoia.
For instance, when I say “I’ve got a theory about 9/11…” I don’t mean I have proof, in the scientific sense, although there’s lots of evidence. I mean I’ve considered the events, and the facts, and, based on knowledge of the characters of certain people who would have had motive and means to pull it off, knowledge based on their previous and subsequent actions, and some circumstances surrounding the events, I have arrived at the supposition, or the idea, which I call a theory, that Dick Cheney, some members of the Bush family although not the President, because why tell the stupid guy, Larry Silverstein, and maybe Donald Rumsfeld and Rupert Murdoch, along with maybe 30 or 40 young, fit, hyper-nationalistic CIA guys, conspired to create a great show, which would rally the American people around a completely useless war in the Middle East, which they did.
So, while it doesn’t amount to the level of a theory, it’s more than just a crazy guess. Maybe hypothesis would be a better word.
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