Just to be clear: "theory" has a lot of different meanings, depending on the context. It can mean "hypothesis", but I can think of at least three other meanings

Just to be clear: "theory" has a lot of different meanings, depending on the context. It can mean "hypothesis", but I can think of at least three other meanings, with example phrases: "Marxist theory"[1], "the theory of evolution"[2], "group theory"[3]... As you're probably aware, this confusing patchwork of similar and overlapping yet distinct meanings is ripe for abuse: it's what allows people to get away with saying things like "evolution is just a theory". [1] Here it means "the collective body of work of some school of thought". [2] "A widely-accepted, well-tested scientific explanation for a phenomenon". [3] "A subfield of mathematics; the set of definitions, theorems, and techniques related to a particular type of abstract object" (in this case, groups).