this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2024
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Science Memes

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[–] 2pt_perversion 30 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (7 children)

Descriptive linguists unite! Words evolve and that's okay. Really science should pivot away and start calling more proven theories a different word if they're upset about the confusion.

The etymology of the word theory comes from a word with a meaning closer to "to look at or speculate" so even in that sense science kind of hijacked a word that was further from the modern scientific understanding of the word "theory" and descriptively transformed it themselves for use in their community. And that's okay too.

[–] tehmics 12 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I've ranted about this so much to people close to me. Scientific community just needs to adopt a new word like you say, theory is a lost battle

[–] Reddfugee42 1 points 6 months ago

Would courses like Music Theory also need to get a new name?

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