(October 29, 2013 at 11:54 pm)Informative2016 Wrote: If I'm not mistaken some of the greatest scientists were Christian thinkers (such as Isaac Newton) ... and you can't use science to disprove religion, all science is are theories, then again we don't comprehend much of the science that is being studied today, by taking college level physics I'm knowledgeable of this, you have come as far as what? Believing in the big Bang THEORY?
In colloquial use by laypeople, 'theory' is roughly a synonym for 'educated guess'. So calling something someone says 'just a theory' is a way of saying it's speculative.
In science, what most people call a theory would be referred to as a hypothesis. The next step is to attempt to disprove the hypothesis by experiment or comparing it to predictions that would follow if it were true. Only if the hypothesis survives repeated testing is it considered confirmed. A scientific theory is based on, and explains, multiple confirmed hypotheses. There is much in 'theoretical' physics that would be better described as hypothetical, but the theory that the universe was once in a hot dense state that underwent rapid expansion that continues to this day is as well-supported as the theory of gravity.
