(March 31, 2021 at 3:41 am)John 6IX Breezy Wrote:(March 30, 2021 at 9:32 pm)polymath257 Wrote: These days, the term 'theory' is mostly used for an attempt to unify a large collection of phenomena in a single system.
Right. Theories tend to either provide unification, or give a casual account of things. And perhaps the distinction is most notable across disciplines than within disciplines. Physics seems more interested in unification, thus you have things like the "theory of everything." But biology is more interested in casual theories. Thus why evolution explains the diversity of life on earth as resulting from changes in allele frequencies.
Should "casual" be "causal"?
Damn autocorrect.