Why is the Theory of Plate Tectonics still a theory and not a law?
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You should look into the definition of scientifc theory and laws. Plate tectonics will never become a Law because that terminology does not apply to Plate Tectonics. The fact that it is known as a theory does not mean it is still hypothetical or based on conjecture. This is the common meaning of the word theory (that so confuses the creationists) but is not the scientific meaning of the word. Plate tectonics is well established and well tested. There are some causative parts that are still not completely understood because we have not been able to obsverve the interaction between the mantle and asthenosphere, but that fits well into the definition of a scientific theory. In many fields of science a THEORY is the highest level of certainty and the term LAW does not apply. \n\nI quote:\nIn science, a body of descriptions of knowledge is usually only called a theory once it has a firm empirical basis, i.e., it\n\n   1. is consistent with pre-existing theory to the extent that the pre-existing theory was experimentally verified, though it will often show pre-existing theory to be wrong in an exact sense,\n   2. is supported by many strands of evidence rather than a single foundation, ensuring that it probably is a good approximation if not totally correct,\n   3. makes predictions that might someday be used to disprove the theory,\n   4. is tentative, correctable and dynamic, in allowing for changes to be made as new data is discovered, rather than asserting certainty, and\n   5. is the most parsimonious explanation, sparing in proposed entities or explanations, commonly referred to as passing Ockham's razor.\n\nThis is true of such established theories as special and general relativity, quantum mechanics, plate tectonics, evolution, etc. Theories considered scientific meet at least most, but ideally all, of the above criteria. The fewer which are matched, the less scientific it is; those that meet only several or none at all, cannot be said to be scientific in any meaningful sense of the word.\n\nPhysical laws are distinguished from scientific theories by their simplicity. Scientific theories are generally more complex than laws; they have many component parts, and are more likely to be changed as the body of available experimental data and analysis develops. This is because a physical law is a summary observation of strictly empirical matters, whereas a theory is a model that accounts for the observation, explains it, relates it to other observations, and makes testable predictions based upon it. Simply stated, while a law notes that something happens, a theory attempts to deal with why or how it happens."
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The beginnings of the theory of plate tectonics date to around 1920, when Alfred Wegener, the German meteorologist and geophysicist, presented the first detailed accounts of how today's continents were once a large supercontinent that slowly drifted to their present positions. Others brought forth evidence, but plate tectonics processes and continental drift did not attract wide interest until the late 1950s, when scientists found the alignment of magnetic particles in rock responded to the earth's magnetic field of that time. Plotting paleomagnetic polar changes (see paleomagnetism) showed that all continents had moved across the earth over time.\n\nSynthesized from these findings and others in geology, oceanography, and geophysics, plate tectonics theory holds that the lithosphere, the hard outer layer of the earth, is divided into about 7 major plates and perhaps as many as 12 smaller plates, c.60 mi (100 km) thick, resting upon a lower soft layer called the asthenosphere. Because the sides of a plate are either being created or destroyed, its size and shape are continually changing. Such active plate tectonics make studying global tectonic history, especially for the ocean plates, difficult for times greater than 200 million years ago. The continents, which are c.25 mi (40 km) thick, are embedded in some of the plates, and hence move as the plates move about on the earth's surface.\n\nThe mechanism moving the plates is at present unknown, but is probably related to the transfer of heat energy or convection within the earth's mantle. If true, and the convection continues, the earth will continue to cool. This will eventually halt the mantle's motion allowing the crust to stabilize, much like what has happened on other planets and satellites in the solar system, such as Mars and the moon.
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Plate tectonics\nFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia\nJump to: navigation, search\n    \nBridge across the Álfagjá rift valley in southwest Iceland, the boundary of the Eurasian and North American continental tectonic plates.Plate tectonics (from Greek τέκτων, tektōn "builder" or "mason") is a theory of geology which was developed to explain the observed evidence for large scale motions within the Earth's crust. The theory encompassed and superseded the older theory of continental drift from the first half of the 20th century and the concept of sea floor spreading developed during the 1960s.\n\nThe outermost part of the Earth's interior is made up of two layers: above is the lithosphere, comprising the crust and the rigid uppermost part of the mantle. Below the lithosphere lies the asthenosphere, which is a more viscous zone of the mantle. Although solid, the asthenosphere has very low shear strength and can flow like a liquid on geological time scales. The deeper mantle below the asthenosphere is more rigid again.\n\nThe lithosphere essentially floats on the asthenosphere. The lithosphere has broken up into what are called tectonic plates—in the case of Earth, there are ten major and many minor plates. These plates move in relation to one another at one of three types of plate boundaries: convergent, divergent, and transform. Earthquakes, volcanic activity, mountain-building, and oceanic trench formation occur along plate boundaries. The lateral movement of the plates is typically at speeds of several centimetres per year.
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A theory, as opposed to a hypothesis, has a great deal of evidence supporting it.  To rise to the level of theory, and explanation must be internally and externally consistent, have no strong evidence disputing it, and have a preponderence of testable and relicatable evidence supporting it.  It is also useful if the theory is flexible and able to be fine-tuned based upon new evidence.  A hypothesis, on the other hand, must merely be a testable, comprehensible, and logical explanation of the known facts.  No real experimental data is needed for a hypothesis, but any fundable hypothesis, in order to be taken seriously, usually must have been experimentally tested to a point.  There is a large gulf between theory and hypothesis- A theory is very well accepted, has endured years or decades of attempts to disprove it (even, and ethically especially, by those who believe it), and totally explains the observable universe as it is.  A hypothesis can have nearly no experimental support, or a great deal, but is not supported strongly enough or believed with a strong enough consensus of the cogniscenti to be elevated to theory.  Theory is usually as far as anything can be elevated, because in order to be a law of nature, it must be mathematically proven beyond any shadow of a doubt.  Scientists of all stripes are so sceptical and cautious that almost nothing ever achieves this outside of mathematical proof.  Since mathematical proof cannot at this time be applied most of scientific theory, Theory is as good as it can get.
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So far, the laws of nature have been constant wherever we look. This includes astronomical observations of events long ago and far away. Therefore, the assumption that the laws do not change is a reasonable one and is generally accepted. If you want to argue otherwise, you need to specify what laws you think were different, in what way, and how could we tell. Otherwise, your argument is no better than "science doesn't know everything; therefore, pigs can fly".
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Um read a Feynman book he discusses this. Laws of physics are not laws like crimnal laws, they cannot be broken, if you appear to break a law then it means the law is wrong not that it has been broken. The term law isnt really correct they are more just theories of how the world works on a certain scale. You cannot brweak a law, only disprove it.\n\n\nSorry people are missing the point, science laws are unbreakable, to break a scientific law is to show it is in fact not a scientific law but instead just an incorrect hypothesis of (as all current laws are) a generalisation. Laws like Newtons Laws are easyily disproved with quantum mechanics or relativistic phenomena but they are still valid laws when you are looking at stuff at the correct scale (like apples falling out of trees for example). Physical laws just describe how something works at a certain scale, you can find counter examples for them but they are still valid (speed camereas still work even though they dont take time dialation into account!)\n\nBasically it all boils down to a bad choice of words, they shouldn't be called Laws but instead Models.
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Check to following link to know more about Tsunami.\n\nIt's not possible to accurately predict plate tectonics  currently.
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To be sure, the theory has a lot of gaps.  So it's not a Law.  All's it takes is one scientifically provable discovery that doesn't fit the theory to launch a search for a new theory that will explain the new information while keeping the old proven stuff too.  A good example is Einstein's Theory of Relativity.  Newtonian Mechanics fails at extreme sizes and speeds.  Relativity so far has been able to explain all the variances found to date at those extremes, but has not been proven to be 100% valid all the time, so it's not a law yet.  If you can discover something that invalidates evolutionary theory, you'll probably win a Nobel Prize!
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Plate tectonics is the process by which the crustal plates constantly move about, collide, diverge, and, in the process, and recycle themselves to/from the mantle; Earth is the only planet known at the moment that has such processes. I can't simplify it much more, I'm sorry.
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Theories are more complex than laws, where laws describe only one action or phenomena, theories explain the mechanisms behind the phenomena and related phenomena. \n\nAn example of a law is the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which states:\nThe total entropy of any thermodynamically isolated system tends to increase over time, approaching a maximum value.  \n\nThe theory of gravity, on the other hand, governs everything from falling bodies, forces of attraction between bodies, and planetary motion.  It describes a wide range of phenomena, and is far more detailed than the Second Law of Thermodynamics.  \n\nTheories are also mutable and evolve as better information becomes available.  The Second Law of Thermodynamics will not and does not change, but gravity theory is evolving as discoveries are made in the field of quantum mechanics.\n\nI found this on a website; it may be helpful in describing the difference between theory and law:\nAn analogy can be made using a slingshot and an automobile. \n\nA scientific law is like a slingshot. A slingshot has but one moving part--the rubber band. If you put a rock in it and draw it back, the rock will fly out at a predictable speed, depending upon the distance the band is drawn back. \n\nAn automobile has many moving parts, all working in unison to perform the chore of transporting someone from one point to another point. An automobile is a complex piece of machinery. Sometimes, improvements are made to one or more component parts. A new set of spark plugs that are composed of a better alloy that can withstand heat better, for example, might replace the existing set. But the function of the automobile as a whole remains unchanged. \n\nA theory is like the automobile. Components of it can be changed or improved upon, without changing the overall truth of the theory as a whole. \n(Comes from the first site listed in Sources)\n\nHope this is helpful :-)
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Two main reasons:\n\nFirst, he could not explain *how* continents were able to move.\n\nSecond, he suggested that the reate of drift was ten to a hundred times faster than we now know to be true.\n\nI would suggest that, third, the idea is so counterintuitive -- because human lives are so short, in geological terms, continents seem to us to be utterly constant and permanent.
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There is some weak evidence, but its all incomplete.  Some people who claim that creation is supported by evidence will offer examples like, "A chart of minerals on the sea floor shows no minerals older than a few thousand years"...when in reality this is only a PORTION of a chart that shows minerals millions of years old.\n\nOther theories include "there's not enough mud on the sea floor"...if sediment washes into the ocean as fast as it does, and the only way to dispose of it is through techtonic plates pushing it underground...then there's not enough to support a planet billions of years old.  However, first in order for this arguement to be valid you'd have to support the theory of techtonic plates...which matches continental drift taking millions of years.  Not to mention millions of tons of water and mud can turn the floor into rock.\n\nBottom line, about 1 tenth of 1% of geologists, anthropologists, and life scientists even believe that creation is possible.  These ARE the scientists that do these studies...so clearly scientific theories of creation are not valid.
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(m)\n\nAustralian and American researchers investigating forces exerted on the Indo-Australian tectonic plate have discovered that the considerable stresses being exerted on the plate could be leading to its breaking up.\n\nARC Professorial Fellow, Mike Sandiford, from the University of Melbourne’s School of Earth Sciences was recently awarded ARC funding for research aimed at understanding the forces that drive the motion of the Earth’s tectonic plates and the distribution of stresses in the Earth’s crust that give rise to great earthquakes such as the magnitude 9 Boxing Day Sumatran quake.\n\nProfessor Sandiford says the research shows that as much as 10 per cent of the huge amounts of energy being created at plate connection points at Sumatra and Java are being transferred back into our plate and causing major stresses.\n\n“This is enough stress to contribute to mild earthquake activity in the central regions of the plate, such as in the Australian continent or central Indian Ocean, and provides us with clues as to why our plate has been slowly breaking up,” he says.\n\n“The Indian Ocean quakes are, in effect, leading to the active rupture of the Indo-Australian plate into separate Indian and Australian plates. This new research provides us with important information about the stresses that are driving this drawn out tectonic plate divorce.”\n\nThe research, which was conducted in collaboration with Wouter Pieter Schellart of the Australian National University and David Coblentz of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in the US, will be published in the journal Geology (27 January).\n\nThe research is also important for understanding why smaller intra-plate earthquakes such as the 1989 Newcastle quake, which occurred nowhere near the edge of the plate, take place. Up to now, why earthquakes occur in apparently safe zones in the centre of plates has not been very well understood.\n\nProfessor Sandiford says, “Earthquakes such as the 1989 Newcastle quake that killed 13 people and caused more than $1 billion in damages are just one manifestation of mild tectonic activity that has been affecting the Australian continent for the last 5-10 million years.”\n\nThe new research shows that stresses originating at points of collision between two plates are being dissipated back into our plate and generating enormous internal stresses.\n\nThe ARC funded project will map the spatial and temporal pattern of this tectonic activity and relate it to the factors that drive the motion of the Indo-Australian plate.\n\n“This research will contribute to our understanding of the factors that drive plate motion, to earthquake risk assessment in Australia and other comparatively stable continental regions, and to the factors that have shaped our distinctive Australian landscapes,” he says.\n\nBACKGROUND INFORMATION\n\nWhat causes tectonic plates to move?\nThe Earth is made up of a series of layers. The outermost layer is called the crust and the innermost is the core. In between lies an area called the mantle (in turn made up of upper and lower mantle), which is arguably the most important when it comes to understanding where big earthquakes occur.\n\nThe outer part of the Earth, comprising the crust and top 100 or so kilometres of the mantle (together called the lithosphere), consists of a collection of eight major plates which almost fit perfectly together. The continents and oceans all lie on these plates, the major ones referred to as the African, Eurasian, Indo-Australian, Antarctic, Philippine, Pacific, Nazca, North American and South American, depending on their geographic location.\n\nThese plates (also referred to as tectonic plates) float on the softer mantle underneath. Convection currents within the upper mantle layer are a major driving force driving plate motion and therefore behind earthquake activity.\n\nThe lower sections of the mantle closest to the molten core of the earth are also the hottest parts of this la
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because there is a subduction zone. One plate goes under the other and melts into the earth's mantle.
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I think you are confused a bit. If you look around at nature, it is incredibly complex. The more we study it and the more we analyze i and measure it, the more complicated it appears. \n\nThe scientific theories and laws are attempts to put some order into this mass of complicated observations, to try to explain what is happening. Predictions based on these scientific theories can be made, and if it is a good theory, then the prediction will be verified by data. \n\nThe big bang is just one theory for the origin of the universe that attempts to explain what we observe: hubble's law, the microwave background radiation, etc. It is an attempt to produce a simpler theory to explain a very complicated and confusing set of observations.
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Tectonics (and therefore earthquakes and volcanoes) is driven by the internal heat of the planet.\n\nEver since the Earth formed it has been cooling, so if anything tectonic activity is on a constant decline. The loss of heat is very slow though, so from the point of view of recorded human history there has been very little change.
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Umm, no, I think that evolution is a theory, whereas molecular biology is a branch of science.  And molecular biology was most certainly NOT derived by Darwin.  He hadn't the tools, you see.  So, no to everything you said.  And I didn't understand what you meant by mixing up.  Do you mean using?  In which case, no, microbiology isn't being used to prove a theory, that's not how science works.  It's being used to observe the world and make predictions.  That's why it's science.\nAnd, instead of physics, why don't you ask in biology?  I think you might get better answers about evolution there.  Just a tip.  If you want to ask in physics, go ahead.  I'm just sayin'