This is a misunderstanding of what “theory” means. Theories in science aren’t “just theories”. They’re specific explanations of natural phenomena. There is no pathway in science for a theory to progress into a “fact”, because that’s just not what the term means. A fact is something that has specifically been observed, zero inference. It is a fact that this apple I dropped fell to the ground. It is a fact that Earth orbits the sun. It is a fact that the solar system orbits the centre of the Milky Way galaxy.
“Gravity”, in itself, is not a theory. It’s the name given to the observed phenomenon of objects attracting relative to their mass. A phenomenon that has been described by Newton’s Law of Gravity, which tells us that the force of gravity is proportional to the M1M2/r2 where M1 and M2 are the masses of the two objects (e.g. the Earth and my apple) and r is the distance between them. Newton’s Law proves useful at small scales, but fails to explain some phenomena, which is why Newton’s theory of gravitation, while it was extremely useful in its day, has since been replaced by the explanation of gravity within Einstein’s general theory of relativity. A good theory should be testable, and a great way to test a theory is to predict something hitherto unobserved. General relativity predicted gravity could bend light even though light is massless and thus would not experience gravity under Newton’s theory. This was confirmed during a solar eclipse just a few years after Einstein published the theory. And more recently scientists measures gravitational waves, another Einsteinian prediction.
But even Einstein’s theory of relativity does not fully explain all observed gravitational behaviour. Many large galaxies rotate at speeds faster than would be expected based on their observed mass. This phenomenon has been named “dark matter”. Multiple theories exist to try to explain dark matter. Some say it’s a specific type of particle. Others say that gravity is wrong and should be modified. Dark matter is an evolving field of research where, unlike relativity, no one specific theory is yet accepted by the vast majority of researchers.
TL;DR: gravity is the name given to the observed phenomenon of objects attracting. Multiple theories of gravity have existed as more evidence is gathered. Today, Einstein’s general theory of relativity is held as the best. But dark matter (a phenomenon) puts a spanner in the works of our understanding of gravity. There are multiple different theories to explain the phenomenon of dark matter, none is universally held.
A fact is something that has specifically been observed, zero inference. It is a fact that this apple I dropped fell to the ground. It is a fact that Earth orbits the sun. It is a fact that the solar system orbits the centre of the Milky Way galaxy.
I wouldn’t even go that far. We didn’t even know that galaxies existed as a concept until about 100 years ago, believing that spiral smudges we saw in the telescopes were just weird nearby nebulae. It was at the Great Debate of 1920 that the consensus shifted into believing in multiple galaxies spread across large distances. Galileo notably got into trouble for promoting the other mentioned theory. If you start calling these “facts”, you yourself are giving into OP’s world view that a theory becomes fact if it is strong enough.
This. The concept of a “fact” doesn’t work in science, because anything can theoretically be disproven.
The main concept of science is that we observe things and infer models and rules. Since we do not observe rules but only infer them, all is a theory, which means “This is our currently best understanding of things. We treat them as if they were fact. But we also understand that our current understanding might not be perfect and thus we call things theories instead of facts.”
Calling something a “fact” means it’s perfectly finished and there’s nothing to add to it. That’s inherently unscientific.
Btw, when a theory is replaced, it’s hardly ever replaced with something entirely different. Usually it’s just expounding. Newton’s physics remain valid in almost all situations, but Einstein’s relativity fixes the edge cases where Newton doesn’t work.
Which is why when building a bridge you use Newton’s physics to this day, and not Relativity (unless the bridge is moving at close to the speed of light).
I was using “fact” basically synonymously with “observation”. It is a “fact” that the apple I dropped fell to the ground. It is my hypothesis that this apple I am about to let go of will also drop to the ground, based on the theory of gravity.
Not in a scientific sense. In a scientific sense an observation is just that: an observation. And an observation can be wrong. In fact, with more complex issues than apples dropping, it’s a quite frequent thing that observations are wrong.
If, for example, the simulation hypothesis turned out to be correct, then not only did the apple not actually fall to the ground, but the apple actually never existed in the first place.
That’s why “facts” have no place in science and why even something we are really really sure about is labelled as a “theory”. Because nothing can be 100% verified and everything can hypothetically be subject of chance.
And that’s the main difference between religion and science. With religion the premise is that you already know the truth in advance and you try to find evidence to support it. With science you begin with Sokrates (“I know that I know nothing”) and work from that, trying to build models upon models to make sense of the world, fully understanding that the models might be flawed and will likely end up being changed in the future.
This is a misunderstanding of what “theory” means. Theories in science aren’t “just theories”. They’re specific explanations of natural phenomena. There is no pathway in science for a theory to progress into a “fact”, because that’s just not what the term means. A fact is something that has specifically been observed, zero inference. It is a fact that this apple I dropped fell to the ground. It is a fact that Earth orbits the sun. It is a fact that the solar system orbits the centre of the Milky Way galaxy.
“Gravity”, in itself, is not a theory. It’s the name given to the observed phenomenon of objects attracting relative to their mass. A phenomenon that has been described by Newton’s Law of Gravity, which tells us that the force of gravity is proportional to the M1M2/r2 where M1 and M2 are the masses of the two objects (e.g. the Earth and my apple) and r is the distance between them. Newton’s Law proves useful at small scales, but fails to explain some phenomena, which is why Newton’s theory of gravitation, while it was extremely useful in its day, has since been replaced by the explanation of gravity within Einstein’s general theory of relativity. A good theory should be testable, and a great way to test a theory is to predict something hitherto unobserved. General relativity predicted gravity could bend light even though light is massless and thus would not experience gravity under Newton’s theory. This was confirmed during a solar eclipse just a few years after Einstein published the theory. And more recently scientists measures gravitational waves, another Einsteinian prediction.
But even Einstein’s theory of relativity does not fully explain all observed gravitational behaviour. Many large galaxies rotate at speeds faster than would be expected based on their observed mass. This phenomenon has been named “dark matter”. Multiple theories exist to try to explain dark matter. Some say it’s a specific type of particle. Others say that gravity is wrong and should be modified. Dark matter is an evolving field of research where, unlike relativity, no one specific theory is yet accepted by the vast majority of researchers.
TL;DR: gravity is the name given to the observed phenomenon of objects attracting. Multiple theories of gravity have existed as more evidence is gathered. Today, Einstein’s general theory of relativity is held as the best. But dark matter (a phenomenon) puts a spanner in the works of our understanding of gravity. There are multiple different theories to explain the phenomenon of dark matter, none is universally held.
I wouldn’t even go that far. We didn’t even know that galaxies existed as a concept until about 100 years ago, believing that spiral smudges we saw in the telescopes were just weird nearby nebulae. It was at the Great Debate of 1920 that the consensus shifted into believing in multiple galaxies spread across large distances. Galileo notably got into trouble for promoting the other mentioned theory. If you start calling these “facts”, you yourself are giving into OP’s world view that a theory becomes fact if it is strong enough.
This. The concept of a “fact” doesn’t work in science, because anything can theoretically be disproven.
The main concept of science is that we observe things and infer models and rules. Since we do not observe rules but only infer them, all is a theory, which means “This is our currently best understanding of things. We treat them as if they were fact. But we also understand that our current understanding might not be perfect and thus we call things theories instead of facts.”
Calling something a “fact” means it’s perfectly finished and there’s nothing to add to it. That’s inherently unscientific.
Btw, when a theory is replaced, it’s hardly ever replaced with something entirely different. Usually it’s just expounding. Newton’s physics remain valid in almost all situations, but Einstein’s relativity fixes the edge cases where Newton doesn’t work.
Which is why when building a bridge you use Newton’s physics to this day, and not Relativity (unless the bridge is moving at close to the speed of light).
I was using “fact” basically synonymously with “observation”. It is a “fact” that the apple I dropped fell to the ground. It is my hypothesis that this apple I am about to let go of will also drop to the ground, based on the theory of gravity.
Not in a scientific sense. In a scientific sense an observation is just that: an observation. And an observation can be wrong. In fact, with more complex issues than apples dropping, it’s a quite frequent thing that observations are wrong.
If, for example, the simulation hypothesis turned out to be correct, then not only did the apple not actually fall to the ground, but the apple actually never existed in the first place.
That’s why “facts” have no place in science and why even something we are really really sure about is labelled as a “theory”. Because nothing can be 100% verified and everything can hypothetically be subject of chance.
And that’s the main difference between religion and science. With religion the premise is that you already know the truth in advance and you try to find evidence to support it. With science you begin with Sokrates (“I know that I know nothing”) and work from that, trying to build models upon models to make sense of the world, fully understanding that the models might be flawed and will likely end up being changed in the future.