Re: possibly OT: NYT article on GA creationism/evolution debate

[John Clement <clement@HAL-PC.ORG>]

> > It's been a long time since I learned the official
> > heirarchy of terms like "theory", "law", and "hypothesis",
> > but I wish someone would come up with something
> > better than "theory". No matter how many times we
> > explain that is shouldn't carry a connotation of
> > uncertainty, it always does.

Well the textbooks are certainly no help.  They still teach "the scientific
method" which has been thoroughly discredited.  See the latest issue of Jour
of Res of Sci. Teaching.

I looked at the bio. text at our school and it said that hypothesis after
being accepted and verified many times turn into theories.  I am afraid that
the old saw about theories turning into laws has not been completely put to
rest, and it now comes back in a slightly altered form.  My reaction is to
say that we should do what was done in the Dead Poets Society and razor
blade out that section of every book.  The review of physics texts by fairly
conservative authors in TPT even called the sections on "the scientific
method" anathema.

Maybe we should use the work model instead of theory.  After all a theory is
just a model we have constructed which reflects reality as we perceive it.
As such a model is subject to revision, but does not have the baggage of
being just a theory.  The word model also implies craftsmanship.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX