To MEBuckner: You are incorrect; I do understand what scientific theory is. Remember, please, the Rutherford model (a well-accepted theory) of the atom. If everyone took Rutherford’s theory as near-Gospel, as near-dogma, who would have contradicted and dismissed it? (The Rutherford theory did not “evolve” [into a better theory]; it is much more accurate to say that it “disintegrated”.)
An even better (and nearly overwhelming) example is Euclid’s theory of geometry. “Take it or leave it?” No one denied Euclidean Geometry for many centuries until finally someone (actually two someones) decided to “leave it” and produced NonEuclidean Geometry. As to Why? it is a better example: Without NonEuclidean Geom., where would modern Einsteinian “relativity” be? Or: Would it even exist at all??
The “leave it” part of scientific theory is, perhaps, the most important part since without it science (and “technology”) would be stuck in an perpetually unchanging intellectual quagmire: Forever unchanging! (As they were, by the way, Aristotealianism under the highly static rule of the Roman Church.)
To Phobos: I’m happy that you’re sorry that I lost my reply to the B.Board’s software; with my little experience elsewhere on this Board, I expected a reaction of “LOL” and applause—“another voice of disent stiffled!”. I thank you for not being a boor and I, too, wish we could have finished the discussion. Alas, I am up to my eyeballs in fending off many (near-boorish and quasi-Luddite) attacks in another thread. 
You, too, are, alas, incorrect: Both Podkayne and MEBuckner (see above) are wrong in their beliefs. Podkayne says
But there is:** Fact and (ultimately) Truth** (if you can ever get that far!) are both much better than a theory!
You, yourself, make the ghastly statement:
Did you really mean such a thing? Or were you merely defending the honor of more-ancient, more-senior Posters to this Board (against a novice like me)?? Surely: Truth, understand, and comprehension are the ultimate goals of science! No? 
