Understanding Science

How science REALLY works...

Understanding Science

Teaching Resources

Home → For Educators → Find lessons and tools → Image Library → Scientific explanations (2 of 3) – theories

Scientific explanations (2 of 3) – theories

Image Caption

Theories are broad explanations for a wide range of phenomena. They are concise, coherent, systematic, predictive, and broadly applicable.

Image use policy: For non-commercial, educational purposes, this image may be used with a Creative Commons CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license. Please credit as follows: © University of California Museum of Paleontology, Understanding Science, www.understandingscience.org

«Back to results

See where this image appears on the Understanding Science website »

On a snowy slope, the hybrid butterfly is flying. Next to it is a thermometer showing a high temperature. On the snow sits the lowland butterfly, it's temperature is low. The figure makes an observation "Hmm... the alpine butterflies are darker than species at lower elevation which could be caused by natural selection for heat absorption. If this theory applies, I'd expect coloration to affect the butterflie's body temperature."

To save: 1) Click on image for the full-size version, 2) right-click (Windows) or control-click (Mac) on the image, and 3) select "Save image."

This image is part of a series:

A figure looks at three mountain peaks. Each peak has a snowcap. Two peaks have a butterfly below the snow, and the one in the middle has one in the snow. Each with a unique pattern, though the middle one has characteristics of both. The figure says "Hmm... based on what I know about speciation and other examples like this. I'd hypothesize that the alpine species is a hybrid between two species from lower elevations."

Scientific explanations (1 of 3) – hypotheses

Hypotheses are proposed explanations for a fairly narrow set of phenomena, usually based on prior experience, scientific background knowledge, preliminary observations, and logic.

View details >>

On a snowy slope, the hybrid butterfly is flying. Next to it is a thermometer showing a high temperature. On the snow sits the lowland butterfly, it's temperature is low. The figure makes an observation "Hmm... the alpine butterflies are darker than species at lower elevation which could be caused by natural selection for heat absorption. If this theory applies, I'd expect coloration to affect the butterflie's body temperature."

Scientific explanations (2 of 3) – theories

Theories are broad explanations for a wide range of phenomena. They are concise, coherent, systematic, predictive, and broadly applicable.

View details >>

A figure looks at an evolutionary tree of butterflies imposed over map and observes. They say , " Hmm.. evolutionary theory suggests other interesting questions to investigate. What other species are these butterflies closely related to? How might these species evolve in response to global warming?"

Scientific explanations (3 of 3) – over-arching theories

Over-arching theories are particularly important and reflect broad understandings of a particular part of the natural world.

View details >>