I think what the commenter was explaining was the difference between a hypothesis and a theory.
This is for anyone else you seem to know the difference. Just as an fyi to anyone who doesn’t know the difference, most laypeople say theory when they mean hypothesis.
A hypothesis is “an assumption, an idea that is proposed for the sake of argument so that it can be tested to see if it might be true.”
A theory is “a supposition or a system of ideas intended to explain something, especially one based on general principles independent of the thing to be explained.”
That’s not very helpful, but basically a hypothesis is an untested answer whereas a theory is a whole lot of similar hypothesis’s that have been answered and can be used to predict something.
So when your crazy uncle/friend/co-worker says ‘i have a theory that they’re turning the damn frogs gay and I’m going to prove it.’ They actually mean hypothesis. Why is this important? Cause words matter, that crazy person would be taken a lot less seriously if they didn’t use words they didn’t understand.
I think what the commenter was explaining was the difference between a hypothesis and a theory.
This is for anyone else you seem to know the difference. Just as an fyi to anyone who doesn’t know the difference, most laypeople say theory when they mean hypothesis.
A hypothesis is “an assumption, an idea that is proposed for the sake of argument so that it can be tested to see if it might be true.”
A theory is “a supposition or a system of ideas intended to explain something, especially one based on general principles independent of the thing to be explained.”
That’s not very helpful, but basically a hypothesis is an untested answer whereas a theory is a whole lot of similar hypothesis’s that have been answered and can be used to predict something.
So when your crazy uncle/friend/co-worker says ‘i have a theory that they’re turning the damn frogs gay and I’m going to prove it.’ They actually mean hypothesis. Why is this important? Cause words matter, that crazy person would be taken a lot less seriously if they didn’t use words they didn’t understand.
I would like to submit the hypothesis that this crazy uncle has a whole elaborate system of crazy ideas behind that frog thing.