[swift]

People misunderstand this stuff in part because of the failure to make a distinction between a theory (which is often a mathematical description of a system, though this depends on the discipline) and an interpretation (which really is an idea in someone’s head, though often one we have good reason to believe). Scientists mostly work with the former day-to-day, but the general public is mostly interested in the latter.

Usually this distinction isn’t really a big deal, but in some cases - quantum mechanics, for example - there’s a big difference between the two, with multiple interesting interpretations to consider.

When we don’t make this distinction it creates an opening for people with poor understanding (or, occasionally, bad motives) to nitpick extremely well-established theories on the basis of quibbling about interpretation. I worry about this with respect to climate change specifically: deniers come up with a million reasons that climate change may be partially natural, or that this or that industry may be unfairly maligned, but we can’t get sucked into those debates so much that we forget the big picture painted by the data and models we have.