How do scientific theories compare to hypotheses?

Question

anonymous · Answer

hypotheses is a edacated guess a scientific theory is a known fact helpful at all??

blues · Answer

Hmm, I think a hypothesis is an educated guess that hasn't been tested by experiment yet. It is something that scientists think might be true, based on what they already know, but have no data to support. Whereas a theory is still an educated guess - but it is supported by data. In some cases, decades of direct and indirect data.

And sometimes, very rarely, new data comes to light that suggests a previously established theory is wrong.

For example, the last approx 150 years of theory has held it that Poriferans - sponges - have been the oldest ancestral animal on earth. This was taught in schools for generations. It has been published in every taxonomy book for a hundred years. It was as close to established 'fact' as anything you will find in science. Then, last week, scientist sequenced DNA from an ancient, little regarded phylum of organisms called Ctenophores - or 'comb jelly fish' - and discovered that actually, they are older than the Poriferans!