00:01
Sometimes i hear people say when they talk about a scientific theory, they'll say, well, that's just a theory.
00:09
And here i want to be very clear that a scientific theory should not be called just a theory.
00:17
We could call a scientific idea, though, just an idea.
00:22
So a scientific idea is usually where some endeavor begins.
00:28
And it's an explanation based on some evidence for why something seems to be happening.
00:49
So the other thing that's true is that the explanation can be tested with further experiments.
01:03
But maybe it has not been tested or it has not been tested in a very reliable manner.
01:12
A scientific theory in contrast is that it concurs or agrees with a multitude of observations, experiments, etc., made by many experimenters.
01:44
So i would call that one of the main elements of a, quote, unquote, good scientific theory.
01:52
And usually you don't really see them appear in the literature unless they have these characteristics.
02:00
But we'll also say that observations, let's make sure i can spell observations correctly before i move on, because the next line is the observations have been made by a diverse set of experimental...