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Science Only Has Two Legs
- frossie 16y agoI agree entirely with the OP, but I have also seen people treating computation as a "third leg", to the detriment of progress I think. Let me concoct a trivial example. Suppose you wanted to know whether a bowling ball would drop from the top of a building faster than a tennis ball. You can do this without reference to theory - just go out and experiment. Doing the experiment would not give you the complete physical picture perhaps, but it would certainly (a) answer your narrow question and (b) give you a constraint that any theory must explain. The problem is that there is a class of research where people who are faced with this question, would set up a computer model. Now let's say they didn't realise they had to model air resistance. They will discover something all right, but it will neither answer the narrow question, nor provide a robust constraint for theory. In other words, playing around with computational models is not, by itself, theory or experimentation unless you are very careful on how you tie it back to the physical world.
- krupan 16y agoI agree that this was a great little essay. I like your illustration, but I think your point at the end of your comment disagrees a little with the essay, and I have to disagree with you a little as well. A computational model, such as Maxwell's Equations, is a theory. Creating a simulation of two balls falling would also be formulating a theory. It may be an incorrect theory though, as you point out, and that's where the other leg of science, experimentation (what you refer to as tying back in to the physical world), is necessary. Taking more from your example, I would agree that scientists today are trying to answer questions by diving right into computational models (theory) without experimentation, but I believe it's because they are tackling questions that are very difficult to experiment with. I don't think that's altogether unprecedented though. There are instances of scientists producing theories without the means to test them throughout history, only to have them proven or disproven by experimentation at much later times.
- frossie 16y agoA computational model [...] is a theory I guess that's where we disagree. I respect your point, and of course I accept we are in a regime where computational models are the only options in some cases (we can't start a whole new universe off to see how it worked). That has no bearing on their limitations, though. I think a computational model is not a theory, it is a theoretical construct. I concede this may seem like splitting hairs to everyone except me.
- infinite8s 16y agoI'm confused on the difference between a theoretical construct and a theory.
- krupan 16y agoI think I am too.
- lg 16y agowhen you have good reason to believe something about model-entities, you don't thereby have good reason to believe it about actual-entities, unless you also have good reason to believe that model-entities are relevantly similar to actual-entities. So the model itself is just a piece of a theory.
- jshen 16y agoisn't a model a functional representation of a theory? I don't see how it is only a piece of a theory if the whole theory is represented in the model and is functional.
- lg 16y agoCan you represent the whole theory in the model? The model would need to represent evidence that its representations of the world are accurate. If that evidence is a mathematical proof, a program could probably encode it. But if it's experimental evidence, I don't know how it could.
- xtacy 16y agoThe example you suggested is probably too simple; one should realise that the actual experiment might be very difficult, if not impossible to carry out. Consider a theory of galaxy collisions---I am unable to see any way of testing out the hypothesis, unless the equations are simple enough. A computer program just a different language of expressing the theory... Hence, I see no reason why one should separate theory and computer programs.
- Retric 16y agoModeling is at best a thought experiment. It can only show you if a theory is reasonably self consistent based on your assumptions not if it's actually true. PS: There are limits on science, and the ability to conduct an actual meaningful exponent is one of the largest ones.
- jshen 16y agoI think there's more to it than that. For example, a model can tell you if something isn't true which is very significant. It can also make predictions that can then be tested. These two alone are much more than a mere thought experiment.
- ynniv 16y agoGreat news! My model tells me that humans no longer have to breathe!
- brg 16y agoI am having a hard time seeing the different. A thought experiment can tell you that if A then B. A model is a means of producing a prediction B from A by means of long, complicated calculations instead of simple logical inferences. In both cases the conclusions should be evaluated before accepted as physical truth.
- jshen 16y agowhat do you believe is the different between a theory and a thought experiment?
- mhb 16y agoSo .. I have a physics problem. I know, I'll write a simulation to solve it. Now I have two problems.
- Aegean 16y agoSo lets define it, its a tool.
- sp332 16y ago"First, neglect air resistance..." http://www.wastedtalent.ca/comic/death-rain1 http://www.wastedtalent.ca/comic/death-rain1
- brg 16y agoI also concur. Computational modeling should be viewed as part of hypothesis formation. Similar to mathematical manipulation, it is a precursor to experimentation. Computational models are too often presented as evidence of a physical theory, instead of a prediction in need of experimental support. We see this in every field; social network theory, epidemiology, environmentalism, even papers in combinatorial optimization! Interestingly, perhaps the field that most strongly holds to the view that models need testing is weapons research.
- mattrepl 16y agoThis article appears to be a response to the new Journal of Computational Science whose editor-in-chief promotes computational science as separate from theory and experimentation. The inciting text can be found in the description section here (click to expand the full Aims & Scope section): http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/721195/description http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home... An excerpt: "Computational Science is a rapidly growing multi- and interdisciplinary field that uses advanced computing and data analysis to understand and solve complex problems. It has reached a level of predictive capability that now firmly complements the traditional pillars of experimentation and theory." - Peter Sloot, Editor-in-Chief
- _delirium 16y agoPart of that view, at least as I understand it, was driven by a similar view from the theory side, that computational modeling isn't theory in the traditional sense. From a more academic-politics point of view, computational modeling is often a difficult sell in traditional theoretical publication venues as well, which prefer the computation to be minimal and the equations to be hand-worked--- big computational models are seen more as something that belongs to engineering. So the pushback is: fine, it's not theory, but it's still important to science, and it's clearly not experimentation, so it must be a third thing, and we'll start our own publication venues for it. I do agree more with this article that it's a kind of theory, but I think the people who disagree aren't only computational science people, but also (some) theory people.
- lotharbot 16y agoThe two legs of science are more accurately referred to as theory and observation. Experimentation is one way to gather observations, but it is not the only one. Astronomy involves a lot of observation of stars, which are some distance outside of the laboratory and definitely not in an experimenter-controlled environment. I would classify numerical/computational models, along with mathematical and philosophical models, under "theory". Number-crunching and heavy data analysis is a way to categorize and present observations. None of these deserve to be treated as new and separate legs of science; they are merely subsets of the existing legs of theory and observation.
- dctoedt 16y agoThis is an important distinction that should be more-widely propagated. I once got into a debate with a very conservative Episcopal priest who was then one of the clergy at my parish. He criticized "scientism" on grounds that the touchstone of science is experimentation (he said), and it's blasphemous to claim you can experiment with God. I responded that the touchstone of science is observation, and that there's no a priori reason we can't "observe" God at least indirectly (cf. Romans 1.20).
- akozak 16y agoIf it's true that computation is just an extension of two "traditional" legs of science, then it follows that the steps taken in computation as part of scientific research ought to be as public as the steps taken in theory and traditional experimentation. That is, opening up the source code and data to peer review and scrutiny becomes just as important as describing methods in a non-computational study. In other words, computational transparency is important if computation is just an extension of the traditional scientific method.
- zeynel1 16y agoi think op is making a good point - there is nothing more to science than computed minus measured equals error what a scientist does is to make a model which is the computed than she makes measurements and obtains errors - the error or the residuals - is the knowledge people may call computeds -theory -model -hypothesis -framework and similar words but the process is always the same for instance ptolemaic theory is a mathematical framework that results in very good residuals which means that ptolemaic model saves the naked eye observations very well if as the op writes an experiment generates -40 terabytes of raw data per second- you still have to model it and obtain residuals but the real interesting problem facing contemporary science is that now what is -computed- and what is -measured- are no longer clearly separated
- sdwytkeisjeufjw 16y agothe concept of a new leg is something that allow us to change significantly the way in which we move. A car is not a new leg, a leg grows with the body. So the question is: is computational science like a car or like a leg. Is only a tool or is something that will make a change in the way we think and conceive experiments, in the way we consider thinks to be possible and shape our future? In ancient times there was only one leg for science, that was authority. I see no problem which the three or four legs concept. The only thinks I would consider silly is to confuse a leg with a finger. Anyway, if you don't want to use body analogies, don't ask for know many legs science has in the first place.