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” basically means “according to the predictions of a theory”. Theories predict outputs from inputs – if *this*, then the theory predicts *that*.
That theory might be formal (“Newtons laws of motion predict that the pool balls will move *like this* when they collide”), or it might be informal (e.g “don’t worry about declaring your income from mowing my lawn on your taxes, because in theory the IRS won’t audit you” , where the theory is “the IRS only audits people who earn more than $X per year”).
Either way is fine, in terms of language. There just has to be a set of rules to follow that lead to a prediction of an unknown for something to count as a theory.
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.
Language is descriptive not prescriptive. There is a non scientific meaning that is totally appropriate to use. You use it when you are hypothesizing.
This obviously is different from the scientific meaning, of a body of research or work.
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.
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.
“Theoretically” basically means “according to the predictions of a theory”. Theories predict outputs from inputs – if *this*, then the theory predicts *that*.
That theory might be formal (“Newtons laws of motion predict that the pool balls will move *like this* when they collide”), or it might be informal (e.g “don’t worry about declaring your income from mowing my lawn on your taxes, because in theory the IRS won’t audit you” , where the theory is “the IRS only audits people who earn more than $X per year”).
Either way is fine, in terms of language. There just has to be a set of rules to follow that lead to a prediction of an unknown for something to count as a theory.
“Theoretically” basically means “according to the predictions of a theory”. Theories predict outputs from inputs – if *this*, then the theory predicts *that*.
That theory might be formal (“Newtons laws of motion predict that the pool balls will move *like this* when they collide”), or it might be informal (e.g “don’t worry about declaring your income from mowing my lawn on your taxes, because in theory the IRS won’t audit you” , where the theory is “the IRS only audits people who earn more than $X per year”).
Either way is fine, in terms of language. There just has to be a set of rules to follow that lead to a prediction of an unknown for something to count as a theory.
Language is descriptive not prescriptive. There is a non scientific meaning that is totally appropriate to use. You use it when you are hypothesizing.
This obviously is different from the scientific meaning, of a body of research or work.
Language is descriptive not prescriptive. There is a non scientific meaning that is totally appropriate to use. You use it when you are hypothesizing.
This obviously is different from the scientific meaning, of a body of research or work.
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