Little is gained when theories are evaluated by combining unrealistic standards with less than ideal data, and employing methods that rest on unrealistic assumptions. Worse yet, this ritualism prevents us from recognizing the possibility of a more appropriate way of using data to evaluate theories. Our proposals are not a strict recipe or formula to […]
Theory of Science & Methodology
Experiments are hard to carry out in economics, and the theoretical ‘analogue’ models economists construct, and in which they perform their ‘thought experiments’, build on assumptions that are far removed from the kind of idealised conditions under which natural scientists perform their experiments. The ‘nomological machines’ that natural scientists have been able to construct have […]
No philosopher of science has influenced yours truly’s thinking more than Roy Bhaskar. At a time when scientific relativism continues to advance, it is vital to uphold his insistence that science must not be reduced to mere discourse. Science is possible because a reality exists independently of our theories. Our theories must engage with this […]
Yours truly has been offering a crash course on causality to fellow researchers at Malmö University over the past couple of years. The course PowerPoint is available here: What is causality? Many contemporary research questions in the social sciences are fundamentally concerned with issues of causality. What lies behind rising unemployment? What effects do ‘charter […]
The model is not . . . how one determines the soundness or otherwise of a mathematical proof; it is, rather, how one determines the reasonableness or otherwise of entries in a crossword puzzle. . . . The crossword model permits pervasive mutual support, rather than, like the model of a mathematical proof, encouraging an […]
Why bother with the theories? Because science seeks to understand the world and to explain the experimental facts, and you need theories to do that. Theories are not just heuristic aids, “useful instruments that aid the growth of experimental knowledge,” as Chalmers accuses Mayo of thinking … What is the point of doing experiments? It […]
At a general level, you might say that the stage that comes after the stage of social observation should be dominated by speculation. To use a term such as speculation may seem odd and old-fashioned, and it is true that speculation is rarely used in today’s social science. But speculation does have a place in … … Continue reading
Inference to the Best Explanation (IBE) offers a compelling and robust framework for understanding how scientific knowledge advances. Moving beyond the traditional dichotomy between deduction and induction, IBE is not merely one instrument among many in the scientist’s toolkit, but a fundamental engine of scientific reasoning itself. Its significance lies in its capacity to model […]