Nicholas Sanders wrote:
> Whilst I do realise that some treat theories as belief systems, they
> should not - espouse a theory, never believe it. As for the notion of
> correct theories - since they can only be *disproved*, twice never!!
What he said.
I wish I could say cool things like that with so few words. But I can't.
One of the main tenets of van Fraassen's "constructive empiricism" is the
distinction between acceptance and belief of theories. Theories must be
(and are) accepted in order for science and technology to progress, but
belief in them just doesn't buy you anything. To accept a theory is to
believe that it captures the data. That's a very different thing from
believing that the theory is "true".
Closer to home: I personally accept, at the very least, Word Grammar
(Hudson), Radical Construction Grammar (Croft) and Neurocognitive
Linguistics (Lamb) -- because I believe they each capture a coherent range
of data (though not the same range). I fail to accept most other models
either because I don't believe they capture data that I want to see
captured or because the data they do capture is so incoherent with the
rest of the world that the model is useless (to me, at least).
Why would I be so silly as to believe any one of those theories is
literally true? And what could that possibly buy me if I did?
I'd add that belief in theories is counterproductive if anything, because
it makes the believer just as recalcitrant to change as a religious
believer. (Examples, anybody...?) This is not surprising, because belief
in scientific theories is itself metaphysical, not scientific (unless it
can be shown that belief in theories is necessary for the conduct of
science).
Even most physical scientists and engineers (those who are not actually
experts in quantum theory) do not actually believe in the picture of
reality that quantum theory delineates -- what Einstein called "spooky
action at a distance". He didn't believe in it either, and he *was* an
expert.
-- Mark
Mark P. Line
Polymathix
San Antonio, TX
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jul 28 2006 - 18:56:30 MET DST