How Are Theories Formed?
What is a Theory?
We often hear someone say “That’s just a theory” or on the contrary - “In theory and in practice, it always works.” This term may indeed hold in itself a somewhat ambiguous undertone, and lead to confusion and misuse. Let’s look at the origin of the word; according to an etymology dictionary, theory derives from the Greek “theoréo” which means ‘to look at’, ‘to observe’. The definition tells us that one must firstly observe a phenomenon so that a theory about a certain aspect of it could form. There are essentially three forms of theories, and although they are different, all of them have one thing in common – a theory is always born with observation. The first form is theory as a belief, found in humanities such as philosophy and arts – this type is a theory that can guide or predict certain behavior in a social situation. For example: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs or the Karl Marx Theory of Bureaucracy. This is when someone might say “That’s just a theory”. The second form of theory is used primarily as a possibility, in other words as a tentative insight into the natural world – for example, the most famous in this category would be the Evolution Theory or in physics a String Theory. Finally, the third form is the scientific theory, and according to www.wordnet.princeton.edu, it is “A well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world; an organized system of accepted knowledge that applies in a variety of circumstances to explain a specific set of phenomena.” In order for a theory to be considered scientific, it needs to satisfy certain parameters, which distinguishes it from the other two forms. Firstly, a scientific theory will explain how nature works for example Newton’s Theory of Universal Gravitation, or Kinetic Theory of Gases, and it will do so with significant evidence – unlike in the other forms, a scientific theory is always well tested by numerous experiments. This leads to the next point - scientific
We often hear someone say “That’s just a theory” or on the contrary - “In theory and in practice, it always works.” This term may indeed hold in itself a somewhat ambiguous undertone, and lead to confusion and misuse. Let’s look at the origin of the word; according to an etymology dictionary, theory derives from the Greek “theoréo” which means ‘to look at’, ‘to observe’. The definition tells us that one must firstly observe a phenomenon so that a theory about a certain aspect of it could form. There are essentially three forms of theories, and although they are different, all of them have one thing in common – a theory is always born with observation. The first form is theory as a belief, found in humanities such as philosophy and arts – this type is a theory that can guide or predict certain behavior in a social situation. For example: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs or the Karl Marx Theory of Bureaucracy. This is when someone might say “That’s just a theory”. The second form of theory is used primarily as a possibility, in other words as a tentative insight into the natural world – for example, the most famous in this category would be the Evolution Theory or in physics a String Theory. Finally, the third form is the scientific theory, and according to www.wordnet.princeton.edu, it is “A well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world; an organized system of accepted knowledge that applies in a variety of circumstances to explain a specific set of phenomena.” In order for a theory to be considered scientific, it needs to satisfy certain parameters, which distinguishes it from the other two forms. Firstly, a scientific theory will explain how nature works for example Newton’s Theory of Universal Gravitation, or Kinetic Theory of Gases, and it will do so with significant evidence – unlike in the other forms, a scientific theory is always well tested by numerous experiments. This leads to the next point - scientific
Cited: Lutus, Paul. (2009, May 12) Is Psychology a Science? Retrieved from http://www.arachnoid.com/psychology/index.html Online dictionary www.wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=theory www.rorschach.org