THEME 3 - Post-Posting - Research and Theory

Most people would agree human progress is highly dependent on our ability to bring up new theories. Science for example has made great progress during the Industrial Revolution thanks to the numerous discoveries that brought scientists to build new theories, to reinforce old ones, and to create innovative products based on these theories they proposed. 

In a world where paradigm shifts, as Thomas Kuhn describes, have occurred more than once, what happens when we realize a natural phenomenon happening in contradiction with a commonly accepted theory? Does that mean we have to discard completely this theory? Build a new one based on our new observations? What actually makes a theory? 

This week, after reading the articles and explaining one based on what I had learnt, I believed I had grasped the most important notions of the "Research and Theory" theme, without really having had the opportunity to go deeper. The lecture and the seminar gave me this opportunity, and cleared up a few points I had misunderstood. 

To me, a theory was always "true", until someone proved it wasn't. In this sense, my concept of truth differed from the original meaning of the word "truth" - for there to be "truth", we have to be able to consider, as talked about in earlier themes, the world in "God's Point of View", which is factually impossible. Thus, I realized it was better not to use the word "true" or "wrong" to explain what I meant - rather, I'd say a theory is commonly accepted, until someone proposes another take, another contradiction, something that can change our view on that theory. 

Now, I wrote earlier in my Pre-Posting that "theory isn't to be reduced to references, data, lists of variables, diagrams or hypotheses - even if they are part of a system scientists often use for their research. What makes a theory is the added value to these ingredients : the recipe that causally links them in relation to a question it answers. In short, theory has to answer the question of "why", and in that sense further the understanding of the reader in that subject". My stand on this question didn't really change since last Friday, but I can add a few details to make it clearer. Very often, scientists issue a hypothesis: independently from where they got it (from observation, most likely), or how they're going to explain it (by causally linking data, references, etc.), a hypothesis is basically a statement that describes the relationship between entities. Theory has to explain this relationship, to answer the question of why this phenomenon occurs. For example, in Newton's case, a hypothesis would be "if I let go of this pencil, I think it's going to fall.", while his theory explains the relationship between the object we're letting go of and the center of the earth, based on a causal reflexion built on previous theories and data. 

It's also important to realize that we're always working within a specific framework, a specific context. We can then formulate our current paradigms based on previous theories we've commonly accepted… That is, until our whole scientific community has to undergo another paradigm shift.