Is it right to say laws and theories are the same thing in science?

Question

to those that say no why do atheist say they are in the debate regarding evolution

Answer 1

Sort of.  They used to call things that were believed to be always true "Laws", but as we learn more, we find that in some situations those 'laws' are more like "approximations" than exact rules.  For example, Newton's observations on gravity seemed like absolutes at the time, but when you get down to the quantum mechanical level, they're not exactly the same.  

These days we call things that are 99.9% reliably true "Theories" instead.  Stuff like gravity or evolution, where there's mountains of evidence to support it, but you can't say with 100% pure certainty that there isn't a more exacting explanation that might be devised with future evidence.

Answer 2

theory is something you guess and measured

laws is something fundamentally. BUT as we have seen time to time, laws are been breaken. science is not correct, it changes when you discover that things we thought was right wasn't this way in the first place.

Answer 3

a law is a theory accepted and used in the scientific community. (so it has been checked and proofs are easily available to support the law itself)

Until a new and better theory will challenge the old one for the right to be approved as a law.

Please note that a theory is already supported by scientific evidences and experiments that helped to formulate the theory itself !

Answer 4

Yes they are

(atleast i think so)

Answer 5

No!   They are TWO COMPLETELY DIFFERENT *KINDS* OF STATEMENT.

If you ever want to understand science, remember these 4 words:

LAWS **DESCRIBE**.   THEORIES **EXPLAIN**.

A law is a *description* of some fact that appears to be true everywhere and always.  It is usually a short statement, in the form of a mathematical equation.

A theory is an *explanation* for facts ... an explanation that is supported by evidence.  A theory is usually in the form of a large body of *many* statements, and can grow and be modified as we discover new facts that it explains.

Thus a theory can never become a law.  And a law can never become a theory.  EVER.

>"to those that say no why do atheist say they are in the debate regarding evolution"

The only reason this comes up in the debate about evolution is that Creationists keep saying that "evolution is just a theory" ... or that "evolution is not proven" ... or they demand "proof" rather than "evidence."    Anybody who uses these phrases DOESN'T UNDERSTAND SCIENCE *AT ALL*.  They think that a theory is some sort of "unproven fact", or a "fact in dispute"  ... that when people say "the theory of evolution" or "the theory of gravity" that this is the statement that evolution or gravity exists.   It is not.   The theory of evolution or the theory of gravity is the *EXPLANATION* for *WHY* evolution occurs or gravity exists.

>"regarding certainties can a law be tested to 100% accuracy unless you do infinity experiments and the result is what you expect each time"

No, you can't test a law to be 100% true.   This is exactly why we don't use the word "prove" or "proof" in science (although some people are sloppy, and use the word "proof" to mean "evidence", or "prove" to mean "demonstrate convincingly").

Even laws are not "proven."   Laws are *observed* to be true, not "proven" to be true.   It is always possible that we may someday find some observation that contradicts a law ... and if we do we have to revise the law or the theory that explains it ... but until we do, we call them 'laws.'

Science is ultimately not about discovering laws.   Science is the search for *explanations* for those laws.  Those explanations are what we call *theories*.  

That is why a theory ... a good *explanation* supported by evidence ... is the Holy Grail of science.   So anybody who utters the phrase "just a theory" (or uses the word "prove" or "proof" instead of "evidence") hasn't got a CLUE what science is about!

Answer 6

No way, different things.

Laws are generalizations about what has happened, from which we can generalize about what we expect to happen. They pertain to observational data. The ability of the ancients to predict eclipses had nothing to do with whether they knew just how they happened; they had a law but not a theory.

Theories are explanations of observations (or of laws). The fact that we have a pretty good understanding of how stars explode doesn't necessarily mean we could predict the next supernova; we have a theory but not a law. (Berger)

Answer 7

In science, the word "theory" can be used in two ways - one as "an educated guess" that requires testing.  This is what most people think of when they say "it's just a theory".

However, there is a more rigorous use - the theory of evolution being one example.  In this case, theory implies a well-founded, well-investigated and plausible phenomenon that has been found to stand up to testing.

You might want to check the definitions in a dictionary.

As you can see, the problem is that one definition weakens the other in certain circumstances.

So, to answer your question, the "Theory of Evolution" is actually a biological law but my theory that people use the two definitions to obfuscate the issue is not a law.

Answer 8

Secret sauce is the most correct.

That said, don't forget about hypotheses. People always think that a theory and a hypothesis are similar, but a hypothesis is a guess based on OBSERVATIONS (not just made up) and a theory is a tested hypothesis, generally through experimentation, or statistical analysis.

A THEORY IS PROVEN. Don't mistake the common word for the scientific word.

Cheers.

Answer 9

No! A law can be proved but a theory cannot - or, at least, has not been proved so far.

Answer 10

eh no, a law is something which is definately a fact and is usually indesputable wheras a theory could be only an idea somebody has but hasn't proven it

Answer 11

No, not at all. A theory is something that is conceived by a person by logic. It can be proved by correct observation. Correct observation can even disprove it! In short, a theory may not be true at all.

On the other hand, a law is........well, a law. It is a rule which is true and must be obeyed. One can even say that a law is a theory that has been confirmed repeatedly and accurately by observation.

For example, the general theory of relativity was only a theory with no obserations to match its predictions. Only after the team led by Arthur Eddington proved it, did it transform from a theory into a law.

So, it is NOT right to say that laws and theories are the same in science.