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Re: [Phys-L] strange things in chem book



While watching a new episode of Wallender on PBS I was struck by the use of
the word theory. One investigator asked another if they had a theory for
the crime. Now from the scientific usage he should have said hypothesis,
but this use of theory is deeply embedded into common language.

So what can be done about this? We can certainly teach students to
understand the scientific usage of the word, but that won't change the
common usage. Unfortunately we are currently stuck with a bunch of words
which have common usage which is often opposed to our usage.

So is there any hope of quilifying theory such as "scientific theory"? Or
could it be changed to "model"? To do this textbook writers would have to
change their wording, and teachers would have to start using the new
terminology consistently. I doubt it can be done. It might be possible to
do it within one or more generations, but certainly not quickly.

Modelers would use the term model and ignore the word theory, so there is a
cadre of teachers buying into this terminology. But they use model in a
smaller scale sense such as the constant velocity model, acceleration
model...

As to the question of why something is called a law, does anyone have
information about how various things began to be called laws. Newton's laws
were not called laws by him. So where does it first appear in the
literature that they are called laws? And are there any 20th century
"laws"? Who called Boyle's law a law? If we are no longer calling new
equations laws, then conservatives opposed to more laws should be pleased.
Perhaps authors of introductory textbooks used the term to make the ideas
seem more definite!

John M. Clement
Houston, TX