4. a. A scheme or system of ideas or statements held as an explanation or account of a group of facts or phenomena; a hypothesis that has been confirmed or established by observation or experiment, and is propounded or accepted as accounting for the known facts; a statement of what are held to be the general laws, principles, or causes of something known or observed.
c. A systematic statement of the general principles or laws of some branch of mathematics; a set of theorems forming a connected system: as the theory of equations, of functions, of numbers, of probabilities .
5. In the abstract (without article): Systematic conception or statement of the principles of something; abstract knowledge, or the formulation of it: often used as implying more or less unsupported hypothesis (cf. 6): distinguished from or opposed to practice (cf. 4b). in theory (formerly in the theory): according to theory, theoretically (opp. to in practice or in fact).
6. In loose or general sense: A hypothesis proposed as an explanation; hence, a mere hypothesis, speculation, conjecture; an idea or set of ideas about something; an individual view or notion.
I went a bit overboard, there. The "systemic statement of general principles" is more in line with my thought. I don't think it is limited to mathematics since we have other theories, such as evolution, which are not necessarily math-based.
No, it definitely isn't limited to mathematics. We have plenty of theories in nursing, for example.
As for "established fact," here is what Dictionary.com says in its second definition: "2. a proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural and subject to experimentation, in contrast to well-established propositions that are regarded as reporting matters of actual fact."
This is where creationists fall down when arguing against evolution. They say "It's only a theory, so we'll propose our alternative theory of intelligent design", without, of course, producing any valid evidence. However, that demonstrates ignorance of the scientific use of the word.
Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Excellent example, arnie. Still, I do think we use the word in a confusing way. For example, we might offhandedly say, " theoretically," to mean "it's possible in theory, but not necessarily in practice."
However, in nursing this is an acceptable definition of nursing theory: "A nursing theory is a set of concepts, definitions, relationships, and assumptions or propositions derived from nursing models or from other disciplines and project a purposive, systematic view of phenomena by designing specific inter-relationships among concepts for the purposes of describing, explaining, predicting..."
Another word seemingly being misused is "slavery." According to some against gay marriage, requiring bakers to construct wedding cakes for gay couples amounts to "slave labor." However, I always believed a slave was a person forced to work for little or no pay at menial and/or loathsome tasks. Exactly how and when did performing a job you committed yourself to and for which you are adequately compensated become "slavery"? A slave is unable to refuse to work and cannot leave, while the baker can always quit and find another job.
