an explanation of terms used by sciency people that are assumed to be understood by non-sciency people but actually aren’t
the use of the terms here are not reflective of their plain dictionary meaning, but are specific to the field of science. they can carry different meanings in different fields, such as philosophy, mathematics or religion
fallacy
a fallacy is an idea formed in spite of contrary evidence. an uninformed opinion, formed independent of adequate knowledge for a hypothesis, and therefore may be true or false
hypothesis
an informed guess, and one which may be more likely to be true than an uninformed guess, but is less likely to be true than a theory
theory
a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world based on a body of facts that have been repeatedly confirmed through observation, experimentation and external scrutiny, gathered for the sole purpose of verifying the hypothesis and is extremely likely to be true
axiom
a logical truth or premise so evident as to be accepted as true without proof or controversy, e.g. x=x, every effect has a cause, an effect cannot be its own cause, etc
faith
an idea which is held to be true when no evidence is scientifically available to support it, but also no evidence could be possible to disprove it. a belief in an axiom not held to be true by the scientific community