Exploring Theories and Laws

1. Exploring Theories and Laws

2. Theories Laws How are these four concepts related to each other? Facts Hypotheses

3. Common Descriptions • Facts are indisputable, proven, known to have happened • Hypotheses are educated guesses, hunches, unsubstantiated claims • Theories are unsubstantiated ideas, opinions, unproven explanations • Laws are proven theories that have withstood repeated testing over time, rules that must be followed, a piece of enacted legislation

4. When supported over time L A W (fact) When proven that it always works THEORY HYPOTHESIS

5. From Where Do These Ideas Originate?

6. Theories in Media

7. Laws in Media

8. Explicit Instruction Answer: A law is something that can be measured or observed to be true. A theory is something that can only be assumed to be true based on the best available knowledge. A theory can eventually, though not necessarily, become a law after time and scrutiny.

9. Student & Teacher Ideas A scientific law is a theory that has been proven over and over by different scientists. A scientific law is definite, and nothing is named a law unless scientists agree that there is no question to its being true. For example, scientists are open to finding new information about the atomic theory, but Newton’s law of motion has been tested enough times that scientists are certain it is true. Newton’s 1st Law is proven and through various testing and experiments it has come to be known as a proven law. Theories, however, have not been proved enough to be changed into laws.

10. Jigsaw Activity • Read your article. • Discuss the authors’ definitions and examples of scientific fact, theory, law, and hypothesis. • How are these similar/different from the commonly used/Helen Curtis’ definitions of these terms? • Be prepared to briefly share with the class.

11. List examples of scientific theories and laws…. Theories Laws

12. Theories Laws

13. Theories Laws

14. Theories Explain Observations

15. Theories Explain Laws

16. Which Came First?

17. Which Came First?

18. Scientific Fact: “In science ‘fact’ can only mean ‘confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional consent’.” Stephen J. Gould • Scientific Hypothesis: • A proposed answer to a research question • A tentative explanation for an observation or phenomena that can be tested through experimentation.

19. Scientific Theory: A general principle supported by a substantial body of evidence offered to provide an explanation of observed facts and as a basis for future discussion or investigation. Lincoln, Boxshall, and Clark (1990) Scientific Law: A scientific law is a description of a natural relationship or principle, often expressed in mathematical terms.

20. Is there a hierarchy among the four original concepts? • Facts • Theories • Laws • Hypotheses

21. More absolute Laws And, eventually proven, become Theories Less absolute Which, when supported by experiments, become Hypotheses Lead scientists to develop Facts

22. More absolute Laws And, eventually proven, become Theories Less absolute Which, when supported by experiments, become Hypotheses Lead scientists to develop Facts

23. THEORY L A W HYPOTHESIS

24. THEORY L A W • Explanatory principal • Based more on inference • Concise, descriptive principal • Based more on observation HYPOTHESIS

25. So How Do We Teach This? Mystery Tube Law of Strings When any short string is pulled, the long string shortens by an equivalent amount. String Theory ?

26. So How Do We Teach This? Mystery Tube

29. Post-InstructionQuotes from Students & Teachers Scientific theories never turn into laws. A scientific law is often mathematical and is used to describe a pattern found in nature. A theory is used to try and explain the ‘why’ of a pattern or occurrence. A scientific law is a statement describing how something works. A scientific theory attempts to explain something that cannot be directly observed. Laws are usually something that is observable. Theories are based on inference, an effort to explain something.

30. Laws and Theories Laws Theories • Based on evidence • Can change with new evidence • Cannot • change into • each other • Based primarily on observations • Holds for specific conditions • More descriptive • Answers “what happens?” • Relies heavily on inferences • Generalizations • More explanatory • Answers “How does it happen?”