Glossary
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy | Picking out a cluster in random data after the fact and treating it as meaningful, like firing at a barn and then painting a target around the bullet holes. Antiscience |
| Theory | A well-substantiated, comprehensive explanation for a set of observations or phenomena (why and how), built from numerous tested hypotheses, facts, and laws, forming a robust framework that explains why something happens. Theories are repeatedly tested, supported by extensive evidence, and can be modified if new evidence emerges, making them the most reliable form of scientific knowledge. Note: A scientific theory isn't a hypothesis or a guess. It doesn't correspond to the casual and every-day use of the term "theory". A scientific theory is the very best explanation we have to fit the available data. Science General |
| Thermohaline Circulation | Large-scale density-driven circulation in the ocean, caused by differences in temperature and salinity. In the North Atlantic the thermohaline circulation consists of warm surface water flowing northward and cold deep water flowing southward, resulting in a net poleward transport of heat. Climate Change Denial |
| Thimerosal | Thimerosal is a mercury-containing organic compound that has been used since the 1930s as a preservative in vaccines and other medical products. It is added to vials of vaccine that contain more than one dose (multi-dose vials) to prevent growth of germs, like bacteria and fungi. Vaccines |
| Third-Person Effect | A psychological phenomenon where individuals believe scientific misinformation heavily manipulates others but has little to no effect on themselves. Science Misinformation |
| Tipping Point | A threshold beyond which a part of the climate system shifts to a new state, often abruptly and irreversibly, such as ice-sheet collapse or Amazon dieback. Climate Change Denial |
| Tobacco Strategy | The playbook pioneered by the tobacco industry to delay regulation by funding contrarian research, amplifying uncertainty and attacking scientists. Later adapted to climate change and other issues. Antiscience |
| Token | A token is the unit that a language model processes. While all data, including images and audio, are also broken down into tokens, the concept is simplest to grasp with text, where a token is typically a word fragment (though it can be whole words, punctuation marks, and other things too). Artificial Intelligence |
| Tokenization | Tokenization is the process of converting raw text into a sequence of tokens for model input. Artificial Intelligence |
| Trace Gas | Any one of the less common gases found in the Earth's atmosphere. Nitrogen, oxygen, and argon make up more than 99 percent of the Earth's atmosphere. Other gases, such as carbon dioxide, water vapor, methane, oxides of nitrogen, ozone, and ammonia, are considered trace gases. Climate Change Denial |