• 3-minute read
• 5th March 2018

‘Hypothesis’ and ‘Theory’ (Scientific Language Tips)

Science is important. Without science, we’d still be using stone tools and dying of curable diseases. However, science can be tricky to understand, especially when scientists use familiar words, such as ‘hypothesis’ or ‘theory’, in unfamiliar ways.

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In this post, then, we’ll look at a few words that have very specific meanings in scientific writing.

What Is a Hypothesis?

In day-to-day language, we often use ‘hypothesis’ to mean an educated guess. But a scientific hypothesis is more specific: a proposed explanation that can be tested or investigated further.

This idea of testing a hypothesis is important. It’s also why hypotheses in scientific writing usually come with a null hypothesis (i.e. the possibility that the hypothesis is untrue).

What Is a Theory?

We often hear people say that something is ‘only a theory’ in order to dismiss it. This is because we use ‘theory’ in daily life to refer to guesswork or to imply that something is unproven.

In science, however, a theory is an idea that has been repeatedly tested over time. When we have enough evidence and a hypothesis is widely accepted, it therefore becomes a theory.

The theory of evolution, for example, is known as a ‘theory’ because there’s a vast amount of evidence to suggest that it’s true, not because it is ‘only’ a guess that nobody can prove!

What Is ‘Significant’?

Another key term in scientific writing is ‘significant’. In everyday language, this word means ‘important’ or ‘noteworthy’. But, as you may have guessed by now,  ‘significant’ has a more specific meaning in scientific writing.

In a scientific context, something is ‘significant’ if it’s unlikely to have happened due to chance alone. If it’s possible that the results of a test are due to chance, they’re classed as ‘non-significant’ instead.

It’s important to remember that this only refers to statistical significance. A result can be ‘significant’ in the statistical sense (i.e. not due to chance) without being ‘noteworthy’ in the conventional sense.

Other Scientific Terms

There are other words that have special meanings in science. The subatomic particles known as ‘quarks’, for example, come in six ‘flavours’ (which has nothing to do with how they taste). These flavours include ‘charm’ (and not because they’re particularly delightful) and ‘strange’ (which is because they’re unusually long lasting rather than being generally eccentric).

We won’t try to provide a full scientific glossary here. But the moral of the story is this: if you find a familiar word used in an unfamiliar way, it’s worth checking that it means what you think it does!
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(Getting your work proofread helps, too.)