Theoretically Speaking

“English doesn’t just borrow words from other languages, it chases them down back alleys and then goes through their pockets for spare metaphors.” – George Bernard Shaw

English is the language in which you can tie a bow, choose a beau, or climb to the highest bough, but typically only pull a plow – or a plough, if you’re from the United Kingdom. You park in driveways and drive on parkways. In baseball a strike is a miss; in all other cases it’s a hit. Perhaps only in the English language can the same word have two perfectly useful yet opposite meanings at the same time. They are called autoantonyms (or contranyms), and are more common than you might think. This bizarre split can happen for a number of reasons, including early Americans’ attempts to distance American English from its parent by changing everything from spellings to meanings. Beyond that, of course, a word can suddenly begin to be used in a different way, like slang; both meanings are accepted for a while, until the older form is forgotten by most people.

Sometimes, though, a word retains its old meaning for a much longer time because it is used by a particular group of people for a particular purpose. For example, most people know that the word “sanction” means approval of an action or behavior, as in, “the charity ball was sanctioned by the board of directors.” But there are cases, generally in law or business, where “sanction” still means disapproval or punishment – being sanctioned could mean a fine or a jail term.

Another good example is the word “theory.” In everyday use theory does mean a best guess. However, just as sanction has a completely different meaning in the world of law, theory has a completely different meaning in the world of science. According to the United States National Academy of Sciences, a scientific theory is “a comprehensive explanation of an important feature of nature supported by facts gathered over time.” In other words, a scientific theory is a solid explanation of a group of well-known facts; an everyday theory is a haphazard guess based on limited information. Not every theory is “just a theory.”

It can be a bit confusing when science calls some things laws and some things theories. This isn’t because laws are facts and theories are guesses; theories do not eventually “grow up” to become laws. In fact, it is very nearly the other way around – laws (along with other observed facts and hypotheses) are usually a small part of a larger and more important theory! A few examples might surprise you:

• Modern Atomic Theory – Atoms are a theory, but splitting them has explosive consequences
• Germ Theory of Disease – Yep, Germ Theory, but hand-washing is still a pretty good idea
• Theory of Relativity – Einstein’s famous theory, which modern scientists count on for good data
• Theory of Gravity – Still a theory after all these centuries!

Wait…I thought gravity was a law! Well, it is, at least sometimes; the Law of Gravity is true under very particular circumstances that happen to occur here on this planet and under other normal conditions. But the Law of Gravity is not always true. There are places, and abnormal conditions, where gravity as Newton understood it doesn’t work. Scientists needed to keep searching to figure out how to explain those other rules of gravity. The explanation that emerged is the Theory of Gravitation, which itself is a part of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity.

Theories are kind of like the parents of ideas. Theories bring together laws, facts, models, and hypotheses and house them all together under one big roof. As time goes on, some ideas grow up to be very different from what they were when they were younger (like poor little ex-planet Pluto!) while some others become old and pass away – does anyone remember when the Earth was the center of the universe? But the larger theory still holds everything together, adapting and changing as its family grows.

A scientific theory may not be perfect or complete, but science counts on the fact that the theory is functional and correct. Science works because it isn’t based on hunches, beliefs, guesses, or everyday theories; science works because hypotheses are tested, facts are determined, and scientific theories are developed by hundreds of scientists over many years. Atoms really do exist, germ theory really saves lives, and gravity really works. After all, rockets launch and satellites remain in orbit, stars shine and – theoretically speaking – black holes really suck.

For more information, check out the following sources:

(1)    Fun With Words website at www.fun-with-words.com/nym_autoantonyms.html
(2)    Bill Bryson’s The Mother Tongue: English and How it Got That Way, published by William Morrow: NY, 1990.
(3)    The National Academies of Science website at www.nasonline.org
(4)    The NAS Press brochure on Science, Evolution, and Creationism at www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11876#toc
(5)    Wikipedia’s article on theory at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory

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