February 16, 2009 Archives

TOPIC: ISSUE184 - “It is a grave mistake to theorize before one has data.”

WORDS:375          TIME: 0:50:00          DATE: 2009-2-16

According to the title statement, it is a grave mistake to theorize before one has data. While I agree that data is very important to stabilize one’s theory, I insist that sometimes we can put forward a theory before we have data. In other words, scientists should not wait to theorize until they obtain too much data, this phenomenon is equally likely to lead to grave consequences.

In the academic physics field, scientists tend to conduct thought experiments in the form of imagination, sometimes they use mathematical methods to derive a new formula without using any data. Like Albert Einstein when he first put forward his principle of relativity, it was a pure mathematical formula in his paper and had few supporting data. Because, at that time, the start of the 20th century, the experimental techniques and conditions were not highly developed. However, to validate his theory with data, the experiment must be set up precisely. Until now, some deductions of his relativity have not been approved with data yet.

Therefore, in many cases, scientists use thought experiments when particular physical experiments are impossible to conduct, in fact, they were never carried out, but this unique use of scientific thought experiments led to a successful theory that was proven by other empirical means.

In addition, scientists also use proxy experiments which they conduct prior to a real physical experiment, and the result of the proxy experiment will often be so clear that there will be no need to conduct a physical experiment at all. In medical fields, a newly developed medicine should not be used on human beings before it is tested hundreds of times on experimental animals. Scientists use these animals to validate their theory and collect the relative data to confirm its effects.

However, after one’s theory is established, the supporting data become very important to stabilize a theory and it makes it appear to lend more credence to the theory than the theory actually does. And in common sense, it is impossible to theorize in the first place without at least some data.

To conclude, there is no easy solution to such a complex issue. However, taking into account all the dimensions discussed in the above analysis might be a decisive step out of this dilemma.

The word count is not enough, I feel like there’s nothing more to write, the argument is too broad… I really need to work harder!

Or maybe that’s it…