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theory — English
Albert Einstein said “theories are the free creations of the human mind”. This quote does not really tell us what a theory is, and it might come as a shock to realise that nobody can satisfactorily define “theory”. Yet the development of theory is at the heart of all explanation, and no observation, explanation or description is ever theory-free. A theory is actually a system of statements which contribute to the understanding of certain empirical observations. At its simplest a theory may be described as a “language” for discussing the facts that a theory is intent on explaining. Well-known scientific theories are those of plate tectonics, survival of the fittest (see “natural selection”), extinction of species, evolution (see “evolution” and “natural selection”), urban development, economic development and population transition (see “development”). Geographical models are all anchored in theory. Some theories are hypothetically verifiable through observation and experimentation, others are not and therefore they are not hypotheses, but postulates which cannot be verified. However, geographical theories can usually be verified by a lot of empirical knowledge and they form the paradigms (think-and-do frameworks) for geographical knowledge.
