In my interactions with magical thinkers, one common theme that shows itself is a misunderstanding of the level of confidence held by science regarding its statements. Following is a brief but clear clarification of terms:
A Scientific Hypothesis is
an idea that proposes a tentative explanation about a phenomenon or a narrow set of phenomena observed in the natural world. The two primary features of a scientific hypothesis are falsifiability and testability. Although scientific hypotheses commonly are described as educated guesses, they actually are more informed than a guess. (link)
A Scientific Theory is an in-depth explanation of the observed phenomenon.
A Law is a statement about an observed phenomenon or a unifying concept. (
link)
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