Part 1 of a 7-part interview with Eugenie C. Scott: Religion, Science, and Theory. Dr. Scott describes intelligent design as a fundamentally religious explanation that has no scientific basis. She discusses the difference between hypothesis and theory,

John Connolly: Could you explain what we mean when we say theory in the scientific community? Eugenie Scott: That is a question and a problem I run into all the time, because the way scientists use the word theory and the way the general public uses the word theory are really very different, but there is enough of an overlap that you can kind of see where the confusion might come in. If you are just using the word like they use it on the street, theory is a guess or a hunch or something that is fairly unsubstantiated and it’s your theory, and nobody really pays attention to that. The word theory in science is a term of art, and it means a well substantiated explanation of a phenomenon, so when you think about it, what scientists try to do is come up with theories; theories aren’t just these throw away ideas, they are the goal of what science is all about. If you can come up with a theory as a scientist, you can die happy; this is really what it’s all about. Theories are abstract combinations of facts, of laws, of tested hypothesis, of minor theories; they are inferential explanations of natural phenomena, and as such they are the goal of what we do and what science is all about. They are not guesses.

creationism, intelligent design, creation science, henry morris, darwinism, evolution, darwin, Genesis, eugenie, scott, dnalc, cshl