A theory has only the alternative of being right or wrong. A model has a third possibility: it may be right, but irrelevant.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
A theory must be tempered with reality.
Theories, for me, are just about freeing your mind. It doesn't mean the theory is going to work like a scientific theory works. It's about freeing your mind and making you think a different way.
Every theory presented as a scientific concept is just that; it's a theory that tries to explain more about the world than previous theories have done. It is open to being challenged and to being proven incorrect.
I believe without exception that theory follows practice. Whenever there is a conflict between theory and practice, theory is wrong. As far as I'm concerned, we make theories for what people have done.
A good scientific theory is one which is falsifiable, which has not been falsified.
You know very well that unless you're a scientist, it's much more important for a theory to be shapely, than for it to be true.
There can be theory but, you know, the problem is you've got to be able to test it. So theories are one thing, testing is another.
I'm not sure what theory is, unless it's the pursuit of fundamental questions.
Theorists can create all sorts of theories which go beyond the Standard Model. But there's not one bit of experimental evidence to point out which way you should go.
Theorists can be wrong; only nature is always right.