Terms like “theoretically” or “in theory” are over used, and often used inappropriately Most of the time, the term “hypothetically” is a more appropriate term for what they mean. For example, people say things like “I have a theory that…”, when it would be more appropriate to say “I have a hypothesis that…”
My question is, when is it *actually* appropriate to use a phrase like “in theory” or “theoretically”? Please give an example when you answer.
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Theoretically, humans and chimpanzees have a common ancestor.
Hypothetically that ancestor lived 8 million years ago.
Theoretically, humans and chimpanzees have a common ancestor.
Hypothetically that ancestor lived 8 million years ago.
In common language, you can use it interchangeably with “supposedly,” but it carries with it a bit more of the “supposed to” meaning, since “supposedly” has adopted a more cynical connotation.
“In theory, this wiring job should work…” meaning I think it’s going to work, but I’m allowing a strong chance of failure due to unknown factors (hence the “theory”).
Hypothetically means we can only speculate if something is possible; whereas theoretically means we know something is possible but haven’t bothered to do it.
In common language, you can use it interchangeably with “supposedly,” but it carries with it a bit more of the “supposed to” meaning, since “supposedly” has adopted a more cynical connotation.
“In theory, this wiring job should work…” meaning I think it’s going to work, but I’m allowing a strong chance of failure due to unknown factors (hence the “theory”).
In common language, you can use it interchangeably with “supposedly,” but it carries with it a bit more of the “supposed to” meaning, since “supposedly” has adopted a more cynical connotation.
“In theory, this wiring job should work…” meaning I think it’s going to work, but I’m allowing a strong chance of failure due to unknown factors (hence the “theory”).
Hypothetically means we can only speculate if something is possible; whereas theoretically means we know something is possible but haven’t bothered to do it.
Hypothetically means we can only speculate if something is possible; whereas theoretically means we know something is possible but haven’t bothered to do it.
Examples of using both in the same context with two different meanings:
>I have a theory predicting the 2027 governor’s election. [From this theory,] My hypothesis is that Bill Billerson will beat Jill McJillicutty by at least 10%.
Theory is a predictive or descriptive model — mathematical in many cases, but in some fields it can be like a series of definitions, procedures, a heuristic, whatever. The point is that it is used to describe some kind of phenomenon *in general*, so like you don’t have to have all the numbers known, or it may not be specific to a time or place, or something.
A hypothesis will always be based on a theory — implicit or otherwise. An implicit theory might be like if your thought process were, “I read in a book last year that people make dumb decisions in a hurry sometimes, so I’ll bet [i.e. a hypothesis from this book theory] that the guy currently running to catch the bus makes a mistake and misses it.”, but then you just simply say to your friend, “I bet that guy doesn’t catch the bus.” A prediction not based on some theory — extrapolating some prior information — is just a blind guess, like a roll of the dice. Another example:
>Theoretically [/in theory] you could determine some connection between a person’s Netflix history and their sex life. If hypothetically you find only the total amount of TV a person consumers matters in this, however, and not at all the type of content, then will you finally stop pestering me over my Rom-Com addiction?
In the first case, “theoretically” refers to a general relationship between variables: Netflix history vs sex life. (This is exactly how you would talk, by the way if you wanted to plot these as two variables, x and y, as your axes on a 2D graph.) “Hypothetically” in the second use is actually throwing a curve ball, because it’s referring not to a prediction of the aforementioned theory (as in, “My hypothesis is that sex life only correlates to total Netflix consumption and not content”), but to a “hypothetical” scenario in which some relationship like that was discovered.
This is a different meaning of “hypothetical” in English from the more science-ish usage that I was going for in the first example, and I kind of just threw that in there to tell you to not worry about being perfect about it, because I guarantee a lot of well-educated people here missed that curve ball.
Nope, the uses you provided as an example are always correct. Scientific terms need to be decided, language language is fluid and the word theoretically has the scientific meaning as well as a common use meaning.
It is more accurate to say you have a hypothesis, I say hypothesis instead of theory as well, but it is not actually more correct outside of a scientific context.
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