What's the common usage of the word 'theory'? Maybe it's because I'm a former scientist, but I can't imagine how the public's definition would be different from the common dictionary definition:

a proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural and subject to experimentation

>a proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural and subject to experimentation

I don't see how anyone would object to this definition of a theory.

to me, the common use is more like 'hypothesis' - a possible explanation, that is still waiting for "real" confirmation once the facts come in.

but the scientific usage includes the fact that lots of facts have already been evaluated, and even that the new predictions by the theory have already been evaluated and found to be true.

>but the scientific usage includes the fact that lots of facts have already been evaluated, and even that the new predictions by the theory have already been evaluated and found to be true.

It's been evaluated and found to be true...for now. Almost every major scientific discovery upends some form of thinking or fact that we had accepted up until new information is found.

that's a misreading of what I wrote. I mean, the predictions made by the theory have been found to be true, not that the theory itself is ever proven to be true.

A scientist might make a hypothesis that suspect A is the murderer; the prediction would be that the murder weapon would be found in their house, the fingerprints match, blood types match. Upon search, the murder weapon was actually found, and fingerprints and blood types match.

A layman would say that finding the weapon converted the theory into a nearly certain fact.

A scientist would say that finding it pushed the hypothesis towards being a theory.

"Current evidence points to" then...

That works well :)