We were theoretically talking about cell theory

[conuly]

Thank goodness I stopped to ask if they know what theory means - apparently, Ana had been explicitly told it means a guess or idea. "Everybody knows that!" Eva had the same definition in her head.

No, Ana, Eva, everybody does not know that because that is not the case, at least not in science. It's still okay to use the word that way in casual speech. So we went over that, and THEN we talked about cells. Also: We watched the Buffy musical song "I've Got a Theory", because that totally ties in. It has the word theory right in the title!

I'm making a very late lunch (gosh, time flies when they sleep until nearly noon) and then we're doing history. Despite our late start, we're making excellent time today!

Comments

[crystalpyramid]

Thanks for catching that one early. I spend a lot of time trying to unteach things kids have been explicitly taught in middle school or before, sometimes even by their science teachers. (Memorable examples of the latter included the kid who kept talking about the strong acid, H. C. one, and the kid who gave a whole presentation about how radioactivity worked that had a plausible, but completely incorrect interpretation of what half-life meant.)

[conuly]

I spend enough of my life online trying to explain to people that "casual speech theory" and "scientific theory" are two different concepts. Sheesh.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Hypothetically, you could also talk about the word hypothesis, which is a guess or idea that you can (hypothetically) test. Also the word premise, the guess or idea that's the foundation of one's argument, and which may or may not be testable.

Haha, I love the Buffy Musical so much. Now I'm gonna have that song in my head all day, but it's okay, because Everything Is Awesome was the previous #1 on the Earworm Hit Parade.

.... LOL, have you seen The LEGO Movie? Most unexpectedly, it so rocks!

[conuly]

I have not, actually. I didn't think it'd be that good!

Also, we did talk about hypotheses... because Ana said a theory is 'like a' hypothesis. I pointed out that a hypothesis is also not a random idea, but your idea of what will happen based upon your theory of how things work. So if you have a theory of gravity that says "things fall down", then when you drop your cheerios off your high chair (I used this example because, as I said, this theory is so basic that even babies grasp it, and they test it all the freaking time, much to their parents' dismay) you expect them to hit the floor, not to float around. "They'll hit the floor" is your hypothesis.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... got to nitpick a little. "Things fall down" is not a theory of gravity, or a theory of anything; nor is it a hypothesis. It's an observation.

From this observation, one can form a hypothesis, "Things always fall down", and proceed to test that by throwing everything off one's high chair tray.

This hypothesis is disproved the day one gets one's first helium balloon: things don't always fall down. Some things float up. Some things fall fast; some fall slow - all these are observations, but they're all a long way off from the basic hypothesis that "There is some kind of force (viz. "gravity") that causes them to fall."

That's the hypothesis of the existence of gravity. The actual Theory of Gravity is the mathematical model of how gravity works, based on an extremely large body of hypotheses that have never been disproven (except where Special Relativity is concerned, but that's another matter.)

Babies have no theory of gravity. Most adults, even well-educated adults, don't have one. Ask them why things fall down, and they'll say "Uh, gravity," but then go on to ask "What is gravity? How does it work? How do you know it exists?" and see what kind of answers you get.

[conuly]

True, but I was so busy trying to fix "a theory is a guess or an idea" that I figured I could slide a little.

Ask them why things fall down, and they'll say "Uh, gravity," but then go on to ask "What is gravity? How does it work? How do you know it exists?" and see what kind of answers you get.

Let's not and say we did.

[conuly]

You'll be pleased to note that I spent some time with them actually discussing the theory of gravity, starting with "the bigger you are, the more pull you have; the further away you are, the less it matters" and ending with bowling balls on rubber mats. This all cleared up something that had been confusing Ana for two years now: why on earth people kept talking about the moon when discussing Hurricane Sandy! Because the moon has enough mass to affect things here on earth! (We also talked about how mass isn't actually weight, even though it seems obvious and intuitive to think of it that way.)

Now the entire bus-riding portion of my neighborhood thinks I'm an overachiever. I do hope you're happy :P

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Yay, very happy! Hail the mighty Sky Rocks!

.... but did you get into the distinctions between a guess, a hypothesis, a theory, a premise, an axiom, and speculation beyond the data?

LMAO, my fond regards to the nieces, and please tell them I think you ought to explain all that to them on your next long bus-ride. They'll thank me later.

Here on the Salish Sea, we can literally watch the Moon pulling the Pacific Ocean in and out of the Strait of Juan de Fuca between Washington and Victoria B.C. - every port has its own tide-chart, because the farther from the ocean the water has to go, the longer it takes to get there.

As for the entire bus-riding portion of your neighborhood: they're right, you ARE an "overachiever", but that appellation is only ever used by underachievers who think (probably correctly) that one is wrecking the curve.

[conuly]

.... but did you get into the distinctions between a guess, a hypothesis, a theory, a premise, an axiom, and speculation beyond the data?

Yes, we did. Well, we went over them again. I'd much rather spend too much time in this area than too little, I'm so everlastingly sick of "conversations" with people that terminate when they think they've got a winningly clever argument like "That's not a fact, it's just a theory".