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"When you have put a lot of ideas together to make an elaborate theory, you want to make sure, when explaining what it fits, that those things it fits are not j
by tppiotrowski 6y ago
"When you have put a lot of ideas together to make an elaborate theory, you want to make sure, when explaining what it fits, that those things it fits are not just the things that gave you the idea for the theory; but that the finished theory makes something else come out right, in addition."
Intelligent people are good at pattern recognition and finding logical explanations for events: why BTC went up, why an election swung a certain way, what's happening in the economy.
For me, the main benefit of science is not that it can "explain" but that it can "predict". Next time you try to offer an explanation for something, ask yourself if your explanation can predict some events in the future.
- n0on3 6y agoI think that's not just your opinion, but rather the actual definition of scientific theory. Lots of popular science or introductory textbooks begin with this very definition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory#Essential_criteria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory#Essential_cr...
- unterdenlinden 6y agoIn a very fundamental level I think that is exactly what the idea of science is: to predict future. That is the whole point. We want useful models that given an input (observation of current state) produce output that says how/what things are going to be/happen.
- sebastialonso 6y agoAny scientific theory has two well defined goals: to tie multiple part of the known together, and also tie those parts to some part of the unknown. Prediction is an important point, but it's just as important as meaningfully stitching together what's already known to produce new knowledge. I'm academically ignorant about economics, I'm honestly asking is there really a body of knowledge about economics, like different theories conversing between each other? Are theories built on top of each other?