Chapter 1, Problem 13A

What is likely being misunderstood by someone who says, 'But that’s only a scientific theory'?

To determine

To Explain: It could be a misunderstanding when a person says that it’s just a scientific theory.

Explanation of Solution

Introduction:

The person is confusing a theory with a hypothesis. These terms are often used interchangeably but have very different meanings.

A person is most probably confusing a hypothesis (which means an unverified assumption) with a scientific theory. A scientific theory is defined as gist of a huge amount of experimental observation which contains properly tested and verified hypothesis. Simply speaking, a hypothesis is a scientific, testable, educated guess whereas a theory is a hypothesis proved/tested multiple times hence more prone to be correct.

Just because something is a theory, does not imply it cannot be wrong.

Essentially, a lot of data of hypothesis is tested before something is labeled as a theory. Hence, theories are very accurate even though they might not be fully accurate.

Conclusion:

So, the person is misunderstanding a theory with a hypothesis.