theories and hypotheses

[Bill Adlam <bill.adlam@st-peters.oxford.ac.uk>]

AFAIK, Popper and other 20th century philosphers of science have been 
perfectly clear about testability.  A hypothesis is a prediction about some
observations that you can easily verify or disprove.  A theory is a statement
from which one or more hypotheses can be derived.  In the past 20 years (and
earlier for all I know), scientists have often used "theory" and "hypothesis"
synonymously.  (Kenneth, Ralph and Tony have all used "hypothesis" where I
would say "theory".)  This annoys me considerably, and I suspect it leads to
some confusion over testability.  Is anyone on the list maintaining that an
idea which was known to have no testable implications would be a scientific 
theory?  If not, no-one's said anything controversial about the philosophy of
science.

To repeat: a hypothesis must be testable, a theory is not.

                                                                Bill Adlam