I'm going to go ahead and essentially plagiarize an entire post from one of my new favorite blogs, The Evolving Scientist. I even stole one of the images from their post! Last month, they addressed an issue that has been close to my heart since I was a fledgeling scientist, beating my head against the wall trying to explain evolution by natural selection to the church kids on the school bus. And that issue is the definition of a scientific theory.
I'm not going to rehash their entire post, because they've done an outstanding job of explaining what a theory is and how it is different from a law, as well as how a theory is different from the layman's common definition. But the difference between scientific theory and law is summed up nicely by the image above. A theory is not an educated guess, as many believe (that would be a hypothesis). Instead, a theory is defined (by the Oxford English Dictionary) as 'a scheme or system of ideas or statements held as an explanation or account of a group of facts or phenomena.' In simple terms, a theory is used to explain a set of often complex observations. A law, on the other hand, is a description of an observation, and is often used as a predictive measure when certain conditions exist.
These ideas are, more or less, part of the scientific method, in which observations are used to verify hypotheses and generate scientific theories, thus increasing our understanding of the world around us. This process was spelled out by Francis Bacon in 1620, in one of the greatest works ever written, Novum Organum Scientarium. PZ Myers has a phenomenal post on his blog, Pharyngula, that discusses Novum Organum and its place as a marvelous triumph in human history. If you feel like being inspired by science and our quest for knowledge, it's required reading.
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