What Is an Immature Science?

Hibbert, R.

doi:10.1080/02698595.2016.1240433

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 37 publications

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“…Often, the theories that have this property survive and thrive in the mainstream because they are Turing-complete 4 or otherwise very flexible and/or vague. Theories that act in amoeba-like anti-pluralist ways, encircling, engulfing, and perhaps even digesting other accounts, thus enforcing unification where none is needed nor asked for, likely are vicious and could even be said to dam-age their fields (also see Longino, 2006;Dow, 2012;Sawyer, 2021;Hibbert, 2016).…”

Section: Embedding Reach (Mis)usementioning

confidence: 99%

What Makes a Good Theory, and How Do We Make a Theory Good?

Guest

2024

Comput Brain Behav

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I present an ontology of criteria for evaluating theory to answer the titular question from the perspective of a scientist practitioner. Set inside a formal account of our adjudication over theories, a metatheoretical calculus, this ontology comprises the following: (a) metaphysical commitment, the need to highlight what parts of theory are not under investigation, but are assumed, asserted, or essential; (b) discursive survival, the ability to be understood by interested non-bad actors, to withstand scrutiny within the intended (sub)field(s), and to negotiate the dialectical landscape thereof; (c) empirical interface, the potential to explicate the relationship between theory and observation, i.e., how observations relate to, and affect, theory and vice versa; (d) minimising harm, the reckoning with how theory is forged in a fire of historical, if not ongoing, abuses—from past crimes against humanity, to current exploitation, turbocharged or hyped by machine learning, to historical and present internal academic marginalisation. This work hopes to serve as a possible beginning for scientists who want to examine the properties and characteristics of theories, to propose additional virtues and vices, and to engage in further dialogue. Finally, I appeal to practitioners to iterate frequently over such criteria, by building and sharing the metatheoretical calculi used to adjudicate over theories.

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Section: Embedding Reach (Mis)usementioning

confidence: 99%