Sarah Marzen
  • Main
  • People
  • Contact
  • Google Scholar
  • Random ruminations
  • Research Program
  • SFI Workshop: Sensory Prediction, Engineered and Evolved
  • Main
  • People
  • Contact
  • Google Scholar
  • Random ruminations
  • Research Program
  • SFI Workshop: Sensory Prediction, Engineered and Evolved

Random musings

The theory of theory-making

7/4/2019

0 Comments

 
I've been to two workshops now at which the theory of theory-making is vigorously discussed.  It seems clear that even practicing scientists don't quite know how to define what makes something a "rule of life" or a "theoretical framework for neuroscience"-- myself included.
As such, I asked a philosopher at the recent Mathematical Biosciences Institute summit at Ohio State University to tell me how philosophers of science would define a theory.  He gave me six characteristics of a theory:
  1. Falsifiability: most scientists would claim that this is the cornerstone of what makes a theory a theory.  However, this is a misleading characteristic.  If someone thought that they had discovered a violation of energy conservation, they'd probably identify a new form that energy could take so that energy conservation was preserved.  [Thanks to Feynman for that classic example.]
  2. Accuracy: in my notes, I have written down "error bars", and I unfortunately can't remember for the life of me why I wrote that down.
  3. Generality: this rules out things like "this particular animal happens to have a mole on her right cheek."  But how general is general enough?
  4. Predictive: not just explanatory!
  5. Explanatory: this is way easier than the predictive requirement.
  6. Fruitfulness: the theory should yield new questions and areas of research.

Update: check out this paper about a theory of theories that I'm a co-author on!
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Write something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview.

    Archives

    November 2022
    July 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    May 2020
    July 2019
    May 2017

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly