How do scientific theories compare to hypotheses

Some theories are so broad and powerful that they frame whole disciplines of study and encompass many smaller hypotheses and theories. Misconception: Hypotheses are just guesses.

Correction: Hypotheses are reasoned and informed explanations. Read more about it. Misconception: Theories are just hunches. Correction: In science, theories are broad explanations.

To be accepted, they must be supported by many lines of evidence. Misconception: If evidence supports a hypothesis, it is upgraded to a theory. If the theory then garners even more support, it may be upgraded to a law. Correction: Hypotheses cannot become theories and theories cannot become laws. Hypotheses, theories, and laws are all scientific explanations but they differ in breadth, not in level of support.

Theories apply to a broader range of phenomena than do hypotheses. The term law is sometimes used to refer to an idea about how observable phenomena are related.

See also the Big Bang theory , germ theory , and climate change. Hypothesis: One might think that a prisoner who learns a work skill while in prison will be less likely to commit a crime when released. This is a hypothesis, an "educated guess.

Note: Simply because a hypothesis is not found to be false does not mean it is true all or even most of the time. If it is consistently true after considerable time and research, it may be on its way to becoming a theory. People often tend to say "theory" when what they're actually talking about is a hypothesis. For instance, "Migraines are caused by drinking coffee after 2 p.

This is actually a logically reasoned proposal based on an observation — say 2 instances of drinking coffee after 2 p. Because this observation is merely a reasoned possibility, it is testable and can be falsified — which makes it a hypothesis, not a theory.

The University of California, Berkley, defines a theory as "a broad, natural explanation for a wide range of phenomena. Theories are concise, coherent, systematic, predictive, and broadly applicable, often integrating and generalizing many hypotheses. Any scientific theory must be based on a careful and rational examination of the facts.

Facts and theories are two different things. An important part of scientific theory includes statements that have observational consequences. A good theory, like Newton's theory of gravity , has unity, which means it consists of a limited number of problem-solving strategies that can be applied to a wide range of scientific circumstances.

Another feature of a good theory is that it formed from a number of hypotheses that can be tested independently. Louis Menand, The Metaphysical Club , Researchers use this information to support the gateway drug theory — the hypothesis that using one intoxicating substance leads to future use of another. Fox, the business and economics columnist for Time magazine, tells the story of the professors who enabled those abuses under the banner of the financial theory known as the efficient market hypothesis.

Since this casual use does away with the distinctions upheld by the scientific community, hypothesis and theory are prone to being wrongly interpreted even when they are encountered in scientific contexts—or at least, contexts that allude to scientific study without making the critical distinction that scientists employ when weighing hypotheses and theories.

The most common occurrence is when theory is interpreted—and sometimes even gleefully seized upon—to mean something having less truth value than other scientific principles. The word law applies to principles so firmly established that they are almost never questioned, such as the law of gravity. This mistake is one of projection: since we use theory in general use to mean something lightly speculated, then it's implied that scientists must be talking about the same level of uncertainty when they use theory to refer to their well-tested and reasoned principles.

The distinction has come to the forefront particularly on occasions when the content of science curricula in schools has been challenged—notably, when a school board in Georgia put stickers on textbooks stating that evolution was "a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. A theory is a system of explanations that ties together a whole bunch of facts.

It not only explains those facts, but predicts what you ought to find from other observations and experiments. Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free! Log in Sign Up. What to Know In scientific reasoning, a hypothesis is an assumption made before any research has been completed for the sake of testing. More Words At Play.

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