this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2024
717 points (98.9% liked)
Science Memes
11047 readers
2843 users here now
Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!
A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.
Rules
- Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
- Keep it rooted (on topic).
- No spam.
- Infographics welcome, get schooled.
This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.
Research Committee
Other Mander Communities
Science and Research
Biology and Life Sciences
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- !reptiles and [email protected]
Physical Sciences
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
Humanities and Social Sciences
Practical and Applied Sciences
- !exercise-and [email protected]
- [email protected]
- !self [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
Memes
Miscellaneous
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I don't get it
Probably meant we know that it happens and approximately how it happens, but the publicly communicated version is just vague enough to sound like hand-waving.
Me either
We have tons of evidence that it happened but our models for explaining and predicting it are bad at consistently and reliably explaining everything we've already seen, and each new discovery seems to break those models even more.
The theory is the model trying to explain how it works. The fact, though, is that we have evidence showing that it did happen, even if we don't have a unified theory of how it happened.
Imagine a car crash site, where the cars have definitely crashed, but everyone has different debates about what caused the crash. Imagine further that the specifics of any person's explanation has a few inconsistencies with what we see. So we'd have the fact that a car crash happened, but lousy theories explaining how it happened.
I think it's because a proper theory needs a postulation of the cause of the phenomenon. We don't have a single source on the cause of gravity or physical mechanism of evolution.
A fact is something that happens. If you read "theory" as "model" it makes more sense.
So evolution occurs. Our model of it is crap. Gravity exists. But Newtons model of gravity only works for human things approximately human size and speed. When it gets too big and fast we need Einstein's model (general relativity) to explain things, if it gets too small we need quantum gravity.
Or put differently: it is a fact that I wrote these words. If you tried to describe my words with a theory/model, and it predicted which words I would write next, then you have a decent theory/model.
I hope this helps
Thank you for this very clear explanation
NP