The Law of Theorising Hypotheses

Hypotheses - These are at best educated guesses based on observation. Out of a thousand glasses of water you may find they all taste the same and so you come to the conclusion that all water everywhere tastes the same. The first glass of the second thousand comes from a different source and actually tastes different from the first thousand. You may now conclude that water from different sources taste differently. A Hypothesis can be proven incorrect but not evidenced as correct.

 Theories - Through exploring one hypothesis or a number of hypotheses the weight of evidence may seem to point in one direction. Hypothesis 1 says water tastes the same. Hypothesis 2 says that water tastes differently from different sources. Hypothesis 3 says water seems to taste the same in some places and different in others. During experimentation it is determined that hypothesis 3 is closer to what is observed and therefore it is theorised that in x amount of places water tastes the same but there is a y variable that means water tastes differently in other places. A theory can be proven to be true or false through experimentation.

Laws - These are mathematical proofs that are irrefutable. An example is Joule's first law:
 
A quantitative form of Joule’s law is that the heat evolved per second, or the electric power loss, P, equals the current I squared times the resistance R, or P = I²R. The power P has units of watts, or joules per second, when the current is expressed in amperes and the resistance in ohms.                                                                
                                                                           (Explanation courtesy of Encyclopaedia Britannica)

This is how water is heated in a kettle.


Hypotheses and theories seem to be very similar. They are both sets of ideas that can be tested and proved. They differ because hypotheses are of the maybe perhaps variety, "if I do this I think this ought to happen". Theories are groups of hypotheses that have been tested and proven to be true to the best of the evidence so far collected. "I have observed this to be true so it so it should be true each time".

Science is not about being totally correct all of the time. New observations and experiments prove and disprove theories. Laws are universal truths. Hypotheses are just ideas based on observation. 

When I am asked about faith I have a very hard time explaining my standpoint. I have a scientific mind, I have ideas, I have postulations and I have fact and evidence. I am governed by the same laws as everyone else that have been proven without a doubt to be true. I can only say I believe to be true that which has been evidenced to be true to the best of my knowledge. I spend a vast majority of my time researching the things that I am interested in so that I may know the truths of those things. I do not believe the Earth is round, I know it to be so from the evidence I have had access to. I don't just take it on faith, I don't just hear 'experts' tell me this is so and take that as a given. I look at the images from cameras outside of Earth's atmosphere, I observe the curvature of the local horizon and observe the same curvature in every location I am in.

I also cannot knock faith as my scientific mind tells me that the possibility remains even if the evidence isn't yet there. Occum's Razor says "when you have two competing theories that make exactly the same predictions, the simpler one is the better." He also said that "God's existence cannot be deduced by reason alone." Most scientists live by the first, in fact
Einstein's equations for transforming spacetime are the same as Lorentz's equations for transforming rulers and clocks, but Einstein and Poincaré recognised that the ether could not be detected according to the equations of Lorentz and Maxwell. So by using Occam's razor the ether had to be eliminated. We have since performed experiments that were impossible in Einstein's time that prove the ether does not exist.

I personally don't have faith or beliefs, I observe the world around me and know what I know or that I have more to find out. The only absolutes I adhere to are unequivocally proven. There are too many variables in life fore everything to be absolute truths, my opinion is that it would be naïve of me to trust that I would get the same outcome every time I do the same thing. To an extent it is true that I would get the same result each time, but if any of the variables change then so will the outcome, and variables can change so subtly in the macroscopic world that the difference in outcome may be insignificant and go unnoticed. All in all the world we live in is variable and inconsistent, anything that asks me to take it on faith that it is unwavering falls out of favour with me. I far prefer the inconsistencies and errors that the scientific method offers.