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Creating theories helps guide us towards collecting the right data. For example nobody would have checked Mercury's precession unless Einstein had suggested the

Creating theories helps guide us towards collecting the right data. For example nobody would have checked Mercury's precession unless Einstein had suggested the theory of general relativity. That is what good science is, first you predict and then verify, not first get data and then make models to fit said data.

roenxi 7y ago
Assuming we agree that there is an objective reality; someone who figures out truths by measuring then fitting is obviously doing science. The phenomenon studied by science are largely those that are real no matter how they are approached. There are easier and harder ways to come up with useful data and I endorse predict -> check-> refine as a great model; but if someone figured out laws by guessing what data they needed to gather then did a curve fit doesn't somehow make the laws invalid or the process particularly unscientific. If someone had just gotten lucky and just happened to plot mass vs velocity to recover the laws of gravity we'd still include it in all the science textbooks. What is the alternative - claim they figured out universal truths in the wrong way and ignore them until someone else figures it out? If all the data fits the model then science has happened. Everything else is quibbling how robust the data is (which is still important).
- diffeomorphism 7y ago
  > someone who figures out truths by measuring then fitting is obviously doing science. No, the point is that is the wrong way around. Given any big amount of data you are going to find something that fits, e.g https://www.xkcd.com/882/ https://www.xkcd.com/882/ . You are not "predicting" anything if you come up with your fit afterwards. You can however use the fit you got to try to predict the outcome of future experiments. Checking that those experiments fit is science.
  - roenxi 7y ago
    There is no such thing as 'the right way round' when dealing with things that have been true for longer than the human species has existed and will continue to be true after the last human is dust. There are things that are true and things that are not, and we do our best to figure out what ideas get classified in which side of that hard boundary. We can agree on standards of evidence, but at the end of the day one can be scientific without being rigorous. The XKCD comic isn't making a judgement on whether the characters in it are or are not scientists - in fact, it calls them scientists - it is pointing out that statistical significance is a low bar of evidence and best treated with suspicion.
  - dariosalvi78 7y ago
    > Given any big amount of data you are going to find something that fits Exactly, and that's the main problem at the base of all "data mining": it is probable that you will find a model that will only work with your data. Take a step outside and everything falls. You are basically giving a formula to noise. But often discoveries happen also by chance, so we shouldn't stop looking at unexpected patterns. However, once you find one, you should create a theory to explain it and setup a new experiment to confirm your theory. If you can....
- username90 7y ago
  > If someone had just gotten lucky and just happened to plot mass vs velocity to recover the laws of gravity we'd still include it in all the science textbooks. I am not so sure it would have been a hit as a stand alone formula. Newton discovered calculus and used it to lay the groundwork for almost the entire field of physics, gravity was just a minor detail in his work. Or if you are talking about General relativity, there is no way people would have discovered it from observations alone, we'd get some kind of correction term explanation similar to dark matter or dark energy since the formula is extremely complicated. It is even possible that most physicists would have accepted those corrections as the correct solution and would be looking for the new dark particles inside of large stars for a hundred years before someone corrected them. Or the discovery of black holes would be seen as evidence of these particles, cementing our ignorance forever.
  - roenxi 7y ago
    > Newton discovered calculus and used it Calculus is maths. Different field, and frequently classified into the arts or astand-alone discipline as opposed to a science. People have lonog been suspect about classifying math as a science. Mainly, I suspect, because it does not rely on data as a form of evidence instead using logical proof as a foundation.
    - username90 7y ago
      Calculus is science if it is used to discover laws of physics which are then verified through experiments. Or in other words, Newton discovered that calculus helps explain a lot of phenomena in nature and verified that through experiments, that is the epitome of science. The problem with the data first approach you are advocating for is that it almost never results in a good explanation, and almost all the value in science lies with the good explanations we have built up throughout history. Formulas are mostly useless, you need an intuitive explanation or people won't be able to build on top of it.
      - roenxi 7y ago
        > Calculus is science if it is used to discover laws of physics So a shower is science if the warm water inspires someone to come up with a new theory? That is a terrible place to draw the boundary; it opens up a can of semantic worms about what 'using' means. Major scientific results that are most easily expressed using calculus can be derived using processes other than calculus. > The problem with the data first approach you are advocating for is that it almost never results in a good explanation Science doesn't provide good explanations at the best of times. I'll willingly bet not 1 engineer in 100 can explain gravity. We just know if we measure mass we get predictive estimates of velocity. That isn't an explanation; that is reliable magic. In fact there have been a couple of centuries where even the scientists were basically just plotting data and curve fitting.

roenxi 7y ago

Assuming we agree that there is an objective reality; someone who figures out truths by measuring then fitting is obviously doing science. The phenomenon studied by science are largely those that are real no matter how they are approached. There are easier and harder ways to come up with useful data and I endorse predict -> check-> refine as a great model; but if someone figured out laws by guessing what data they needed to gather then did a curve fit doesn't somehow make the laws invalid or the process particularly unscientific. If someone had just gotten lucky and just happened to plot mass vs velocity to recover the laws of gravity we'd still include it in all the science textbooks. What is the alternative - claim they figured out universal truths in the wrong way and ignore them until someone else figures it out? If all the data fits the model then science has happened. Everything else is quibbling how robust the data is (which is still important).

diffeomorphism 7y ago
> someone who figures out truths by measuring then fitting is obviously doing science. No, the point is that is the wrong way around. Given any big amount of data you are going to find something that fits, e.g https://www.xkcd.com/882/ https://www.xkcd.com/882/ . You are not "predicting" anything if you come up with your fit afterwards. You can however use the fit you got to try to predict the outcome of future experiments. Checking that those experiments fit is science.
- roenxi 7y ago
  There is no such thing as 'the right way round' when dealing with things that have been true for longer than the human species has existed and will continue to be true after the last human is dust. There are things that are true and things that are not, and we do our best to figure out what ideas get classified in which side of that hard boundary. We can agree on standards of evidence, but at the end of the day one can be scientific without being rigorous. The XKCD comic isn't making a judgement on whether the characters in it are or are not scientists - in fact, it calls them scientists - it is pointing out that statistical significance is a low bar of evidence and best treated with suspicion.
- dariosalvi78 7y ago
  > Given any big amount of data you are going to find something that fits Exactly, and that's the main problem at the base of all "data mining": it is probable that you will find a model that will only work with your data. Take a step outside and everything falls. You are basically giving a formula to noise. But often discoveries happen also by chance, so we shouldn't stop looking at unexpected patterns. However, once you find one, you should create a theory to explain it and setup a new experiment to confirm your theory. If you can....
username90 7y ago
> If someone had just gotten lucky and just happened to plot mass vs velocity to recover the laws of gravity we'd still include it in all the science textbooks. I am not so sure it would have been a hit as a stand alone formula. Newton discovered calculus and used it to lay the groundwork for almost the entire field of physics, gravity was just a minor detail in his work. Or if you are talking about General relativity, there is no way people would have discovered it from observations alone, we'd get some kind of correction term explanation similar to dark matter or dark energy since the formula is extremely complicated. It is even possible that most physicists would have accepted those corrections as the correct solution and would be looking for the new dark particles inside of large stars for a hundred years before someone corrected them. Or the discovery of black holes would be seen as evidence of these particles, cementing our ignorance forever.
- roenxi 7y ago
  > Newton discovered calculus and used it Calculus is maths. Different field, and frequently classified into the arts or astand-alone discipline as opposed to a science. People have lonog been suspect about classifying math as a science. Mainly, I suspect, because it does not rely on data as a form of evidence instead using logical proof as a foundation.
  - username90 7y ago
    Calculus is science if it is used to discover laws of physics which are then verified through experiments. Or in other words, Newton discovered that calculus helps explain a lot of phenomena in nature and verified that through experiments, that is the epitome of science. The problem with the data first approach you are advocating for is that it almost never results in a good explanation, and almost all the value in science lies with the good explanations we have built up throughout history. Formulas are mostly useless, you need an intuitive explanation or people won't be able to build on top of it.
    - roenxi 7y ago
      > Calculus is science if it is used to discover laws of physics So a shower is science if the warm water inspires someone to come up with a new theory? That is a terrible place to draw the boundary; it opens up a can of semantic worms about what 'using' means. Major scientific results that are most easily expressed using calculus can be derived using processes other than calculus. > The problem with the data first approach you are advocating for is that it almost never results in a good explanation Science doesn't provide good explanations at the best of times. I'll willingly bet not 1 engineer in 100 can explain gravity. We just know if we measure mass we get predictive estimates of velocity. That isn't an explanation; that is reliable magic. In fact there have been a couple of centuries where even the scientists were basically just plotting data and curve fitting.