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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).
[B] A theory or hypothesis is falsifiable if it can be logically contradicted by an empirical test. Popper emphasized the asymmetry created by the relation of a universal law with basic observation statements [C] and contrasted falsifiability to the intuitively similar concept of verifiability that was then current in logical positivism.
When a hypothesis has survived a sufficient number of tests, it may be promoted to a scientific theory. A theory is a hypothesis that has survived many tests and seems to be consistent with other established scientific theories. Since a theory is a promoted hypothesis, it is of the same 'logical' species and shares the same logical limitations.
The hypothesis of Andreas Cellarius, showing the planetary motions in eccentric and epicyclical orbits. A hypothesis (pl.: hypotheses) is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon. A scientific hypothesis must be based on observations and make a testable and reproducible prediction about reality, in a process beginning with an educated guess or ...
A scientific theory differs from a scientific fact or scientific law in that a theory seeks to explain "why" or "how", whereas a fact is a simple, basic observation and a law is an empirical description of a relationship between facts and/or other laws.
Such evidence is called a falsification of the hypothesis. However, under the theory of confirmation holism it is always possible to save a given hypothesis from falsification. This is so because any falsifying observation is embedded in a theoretical background, which can be modified in order to save the hypothesis.
In short, a hypothesis is testable if there is a possibility of deciding whether it is true or false based on experimentation by anyone. This allows anyone to decide whether a theory can be supported or refuted by data. However, the interpretation of experimental data may be also inconclusive or uncertain.
To these he gave the names astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, and sociology. — Lester F. Ward , The Outlines of Sociology (1898), [ 13 ] Comte offered an account of social evolution , proposing that society undergoes three phases in its quest for the truth according to a general " law of three stages ".