Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
A scientific theory is an explanation of an aspect of the natural world and universe that can be (or a fortiori, that has been) repeatedly tested and corroborated in accordance with the scientific method, using accepted protocols of observation, measurement, and evaluation of results. Where possible, theories are tested under controlled ...
Aristotelian physics – superseded by Newtonian physics. Ptolemy 's law of refraction, replaced by Snell's law. Luminiferous aether – failed to be detected by the sufficiently sensitive Michelson–Morley experiment, made obsolete by Einstein 's work. Caloric theory – Lavoisier 's successor to phlogiston, discredited by Rumford 's and ...
Category. : Scientific theories. Wikimedia Commons has media related to Scientific theories. Scientific theories are distinguished from philosophical theories in that each of their theorems are statements about observable data, whereas a philosophical theory includes theorems which are ideas or principles.
e. Many scientists and philosophers of science have described evolution as fact and theory, a phrase which was used as the title of an article by paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould in 1981. He describes fact in science as meaning data, not known with absolute certainty but "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold ...
e. The scientific method is an empirical method for acquiring knowledge that has been referred to while doing science since at least the 17th century. The scientific method involves careful observation coupled with rigorous scepticism, because cognitive assumptions can distort the interpretation of the observation.
Theory. A theory is a rational type of abstract thinking about a phenomenon, or the results of such thinking. The process of contemplative and rational thinking is often associated with such processes as observational study or research. Theories may be scientific, belong to a non-scientific discipline, or no discipline at all.
Models of scientific inquiry have two functions: first, to provide a descriptive account of how scientific inquiry is carried out in practice, and second, to provide an explanatory account of why scientific inquiry succeeds as well as it appears to do in arriving at genuine knowledge. The philosopher Wesley C. Salmon described scientific inquiry:
Scientific law. Scientific laws or laws of science are statements, based on repeated experiments or observations, that describe or predict a range of natural phenomena. [1] The term law has diverse usage in many cases (approximate, accurate, broad, or narrow) across all fields of natural science (physics, chemistry, astronomy, geoscience, biology).