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Originally Posted by Dion
I always thought theory and specualtion were one and the same.
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Nope, the word theory has a very special meaning in terms of science, and pseudo scientific people / groups use the word a lot to try and lend their ideas merit. While a hypothesis is just a WAG (though maybe an educated one), a theory is a coherent idea or set of ideas that describes a phenomenon and has gone through rigorous testing, made accurate predictions that have been verified, and has tons of supporting evidence.
In common use people use theory to be synonymous with speculation, but when getting into stuff like this where evidence and stuff come into play, I like to be clear with the words being used to try to help communication.
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FWIW if i had told you i have a huge interest in UFO's that date back to the time i was a child it might have explained better why i search and read all stuff pertaining to the mysterious and the unknown.
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Heh, I used to have a huge stack of Omni magazines.