What Makes a Theory a Theory (for my friend Arooka)

There's a lot of careless talk all around Woyano (okay, it's not really a lot, and it's actually limited to one person who, except for the title of this post, shall remain nameless) about what constitutes a "theory."

The word theory comes to us, through Latin, from the Greek theoria, which was a type of contemplation. When the Greeks came up with the word, its meaning had to do with a specific type of contemplation -- a contemplation about God. Now, this was not necessarily a "religious" type of contemplation (like prayer or meditation), for by the time of Plato the idea of "god" had changed considerably. We might even say it had been secularized to some extent. Plato's formalism looked at "the way things appear" to compare them to "the way things are." To Plato, the physical world was a world of imperfection and imcompleteness; things had another existence as ideals. We could use these ideals to judge the relative value of the material thing in question, its fineness or baseness being in relationship to the ideal (this can be a very important activity, as I'll explain shortly).

In this sense, theoria can be seen as a method of understanding what things are and making judgments about them.

In our current day, we sometimes use the word theory to mean something that's not true at all ("Well, in theory, I'm supposed to be the boss around here, but nobody listens to me!!!"), and we can sometimes use it really carelessly to indicate nothing more than guesses, conjecture, or opinion ("I have a theory about that...God planted all those fossils in the deep strata of the rocks to test our faith!).

Now, that's fine. I'm not writing this because I am a linguistic prescriptivist and everyone is using the word theory incorrectly. I'm not a linguistic prescriptivist, I'm a Media Ecologist, and I know that we make of our media what we choose to make of them (and they make of us what we choose to allow them to make of us). We make of our words what we choose to make of them.

But there are contexts for words that are important to understand and to maintain. In the context of science, a theory is a very specific thing. The Cambridge dictionary defines  theory in this way:

a formal statement of the rules on which a subject of study is based or of ideas which are suggested to explain a fact or event or, more generally, an opinion or explanation:
(examples)economic theory
scientific theory
Darwin's theory of evolution
He has a theory that the hole was caused by a meteorite.

An integral aspect of a theory is that it must be falsifiable; that is not to say that it must be proven false, but that one must be able to prove it false if it is false. It must be testable. It must be measurable. It must be public (so it can be tested repeatedly and by others).

This is the methodology of empiricism; this is science.

There are other ways of thinking about things that may or may not yield valuable knowledge and insights, but they're not science.

What fields of research are "scientific" (i.e., use empirical methods)? History (although not all individual "histories" are either empirical or scientific), geography, geology, biology, and many, many others. This is not to say that "bad science" doesn't take place. Read Stephen Jay Gould's "The Mismeasure of Man" to see how humans have "backloaded" consciously and unconsciously biased experiments to make skewed and perverted results look "scientific." This is not, when it happens, the fault of science; it is the fault of those doing the (pseudo-)science who are unable to reject their pre-conceived and unquestioned assumptions and take on an objective perspective.

So what fields are not "scientific" (i.e., they do not use empirical method)? Theology, for one. Any set of ideas bringing God into play -- or any other type of metaphysical "reality" -- is not a science and can have no "theory" associated with it. "Creationism" is not a theory. "Intelligent design" is not a theory. Why? Am I being arbitrary and close-minded? Well, they are ideas, and they are conjecture about the world or nature or some state of affairs in the universe, but they can't be tested!!! They can't possibly be falsified!!! So, according to empiricism, they can't be considered theories.

I'm not denigrating theology, or philosophy, or the idea of God. Many of you have heard (read) me invoke, God, Christianity, and Catholic ethics in my posts. I believe strongly in the righteousness of true Christian values. But that's just the point: it is a belief based on faith. I don't delude myself that there is scientific proof of God, or that the Bible is literally true, or that there is anything objective about my experience of the spiritual. It is people who delude themselves that their experience of metaphysical "truths" are the only, true experiences (in my humble opinion) who learn to hate others for their experience of faith.

I know what science is and I know what faith is, and I know the value of each. And I know when someone is trying to make an idea that is "faith-based" sound scientific. I know when a person is trying to take a very personal opinion and present it to the world as a "fact." And sometimes (far too frequently, I'd say) These people can convince others.

But if you try to cram your size twelve foot into a size six foot, you may get it in there, but you're still going to have a size twelve foot. You can't change the nature of an opinion by calling it a "theory."