I have always enjoyed when a laymen or student puts forth some text book
type as representative of the real world we live in or as irrefutable fact.
And as I'm sure many of you can recall of earlier U days, "if there's a
difference between the text and your notes, use your notes".<G> Both words,
hypothesis and theory are essentially interchangeable with the exception of
"journalspeak" which is not only a completely artificial language, but one
many are fortunate enough to have eluded and is also often misinterpreted by
those not properly acclimated.  Even for the anally-retentive, and for those
who's lives include countless journals and articles (I confess both), this
forum is not the appropriate place to inflict such horrors<g> and should
remain a sanctuary apart.  The rest of this should be disposed of by
"grammatici certant".  Theory *generally* comprises a greater body of work,
but the work is the same.  Some hypotheses are in reality more complex than
some theories.  And *both* are speculative.  As I said before, EL's proposal
is not guilty of your charge of linguistic abuse by any stretch in the eyes
of those who do not play scientist wanna-be's, and is in essence, quite
tolerable to all those not prone to concrete thinking.
 
To Kat, and her worthy addition to this argument, you very aptly state some
cross-cultural differences which have been recognized but however do not
usurp Piaget's body of work.  As I already stated, most of which remains
intact.  Any further discussion on this matter is best off this forum and in
private, which I would readily entertain with you.  Of course the relevance
of this cultural diversity is somewhat less apparent with ferrets<g>.  Or is
it?  Is it possible that British ferrets jump faster than their American
counterparts?  Or react differently to similar stimuli?  And if so, why?  My
point was not to debate Piaget which apparently was mistakenly assumed, but
simply to state that critical observation is a fundamental component of the
scientific process and it's findings may be used to support a theory or
hypothesis<g>.  EL is welcome to his postulations and I find them no less
worthy than anyone else's postulations.  However, this in and of itself,
while worthy, is not irrefutable when attempting to generalize such findings
outside the context in which they occurred.  This was my point to which you
confessed missing.
 
As to the whole predatory thing, I stated before with passing interest that
my post included my only words on this matter.
 
best wishes,
until next time,
alphachi
[Posted in FML issue 2270]