Facts Versus Notions, Hypotheses, and Theories

The word theory is generally meant to express what is more technically referred to as a notion; an idea that people have that is either vague or grossly unproven. This gives rise to comments like; "it's just a theory".

In academic circles, a theory is an explanation for the relationship of all known example of something. For example, evolutionary theory accounts well for all known fossils- it gets refined when new examples appear. Darwin, for example didn't have a science of genetics to help explain how traits where passed on. He also couldn't as efficiently account for animals that looked similar. For example, Auks(living in the arctic) and Penguins(living in the antarctic) look similar but genetically are very different species. This fits nicely with the idea that a bird that adapts to living in cold regions might eventually take on the overall form shared by the two species.

A hypothesis arises when, after looking at a limited number of examples, a possible and testable explanation arises. Experiments and methods are used, adapted or devised to test the hypothesis. Early research is a bridge between a hypothesis and a notion. For example, in the current research I am involved with, we are looking at how people interact and behave when playing video games, especially Wii. If you ask, we haven't collected enough data to formulate a hypothesis. Some of us have some notions as to what kind of social behavior will arise, but we haven't nearly enough data collected to see real patterns emerging. In time patterns will start to appear and we will have hypotheses that we can test to explain the social behaviors that emerge.

At later stages, we may do things like creating digital games to see how people interact with the game and each other in specific situations. This will allow us to test those hypotheses and give explanations for the behavior that emerges. However, those theories will be subject to revision as new ways of playing games and social pressures cause new behavior to emerge in the future. In the hard science's Isaac Newton developed his theories of physics, and these work well for describing objects bigger than atoms and slower than about 6% of the speed of light. His theory is accounted for by the Einsteins' theory of relativity, that accounts for really fast motion, up to the speed of light. and Quantum theory, that describes actions from within the atom. As yet, no theory has been able to account for all three. The facts seem to contradict each other, but the behavior of very fast and very small objects have been seen and described.

We have evolved to reject evolutionary theory; The Irony of Creationism

A friend of mine told me I should(as should all MA's) read promiscuously; That is to say, not only course-related or even discipline-related literature. So I am thinking about the social response to evolutionary pressures.

Darwin saw that overproduction and limited resources create a struggle for existence in which some organisms will succeed and most will not. He also recognized that organisms in populations differ from one another in terms of many traits that tend to be passed on from parent to offspring. Darwin's brilliant insight was to combine these two factors and to realize that success in the struggle for existence would not be determined by chance, but instead would be biased by some of the heritable differences that exist among organisms. Specifically, he noted that some individuals happen to possess traits that make them slightly better suited to a particular environment, meaning that they are more likely to survive than individuals with less well suited traits. As a result, organisms with these traits will, on average, leave more offspring than their competitors.
-T. Ryan Gregory "Understanding Natural Selection: Essential Concepts and Common Misconceptions" Published online: 9 April 2009 http://www.springerlink.com/content/2331741806807x22/fulltext.html

Gregory, a biologist at U. of Guelph, made me think about how certain behavioral traits have different evolutionary advantages. And how these same traits might yield attitudes resistant to how evolution works, or a least as how

Recent economic theory looks at how notions of fairness channel our decision-making process. Thus if you offer people two buttons, one which gives themselves fifty cents and a stranger fifty cents and the other button gives themselves a dollar but a stranger gets four dollars, many if not most people press the first button. This seems to be a hard wired response for fairness, that has also been found in Chimpanzees and other anthropoids.

Classical economic theory expects people to press button two, because the reward for the button presser is twice that of button one. Now, evolutionary theory describes how individuals don't matter, as long as someone gets to reproduce. This idea is appalling to people who seem hardwired for fairness. Why should Jack have kids and not me? Why should his genotype be more evolutionarily successful. It's not fair, from that perspective.

Of course, our responses are more nuanced and generally less reflective. As social creatures, much of our ability to survive and reproduce is predicated on traits of cooperation and trust. Societies that lack that seem to be less successful than others. The biggest strongest, most dominant male is likely to be assassinated by a group of friendly males, if the 'alpha's' leadership starts getting in the way. The neo-nazi idea of a single genotype as being the best is both foolish spacially, because many different people successfully have children who in turn reproduce, and it is foolish temporally, because different strategies for survival and reproduction are successful at different times. The diversity of people offers a diversity of strategies to cope with a constantly changing environment. The facial features of the Inuit are more resistant to snow glare and frostbite. The diversity of hair colours among northern Europeans arose from women trying to attract mates during a period in the last ice age that killed off a lot of men. Apparently, blonds and redheads are declining in numbers because hair colour no longer confers an evolutionary advantage.

So the survival of the fittest is proven by one's ability to pass on one's genes. That idea appalls others who tend to see themselves as equal to others. So much resistance to evolutionary theory may lie in a trait that helps humans reproduce and survive. The natural process that we refer to and theorise as 'evolution' doesn't care (at the risk of ascribing agency to a natural process) any more than oxygen cares if we breathe it in as O2 and out as CO2. The fact that we care arises from evolution.