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I found the article a little strange as well, and I'm not really sure exactly what it's point is -- it seems to argue one thing but then another. As for the underlying issue, I do think it points to something important, but only at certain stages, as you say. A model inconsistent with empirical data is not likely to gain traction in the absence of further data. However, there are times when a set of models are equally consistent with the data, and it's not even entirely clear how to empirically distinguish between them. I think in those cases, aesthetic considerations do often come into play. Also, when the evidence slightly favors one model over others, and is also more aesthetically appealing, it tends to amplify perceptions of that evidence even further, in a way that's not logically warranted. The deeper question is what does it mean for a theory to be aesthetically beautiful? Lots of times, as you're pointing to, it means the theory is simpler or more parsimonious, or something along those lines. I don't actually think that's negligible as a consideration, as it probably means the theory is more powerful, in an information-theoretic sense. If you have two theories, and both match the data well, but one is very baroque and convoluted, and the other is extremely simple, it could be that the convoluted one is correct, but the simpler one is doing so with fewer contortions, it has more degrees of freedom. I also agree there's a deeper issue about meta-science, along the lines of Feyerabend, that was missed as well in the article. Scientists tend to be blind to their own role in things, as if they're neutral perfectly objective entities. Although this is a good ideal, it never works out in practice (or almost never so), and ignoring it often causes more problems than it solves. I think what Feyerabend was pointing to in part is a lack of meta-scientific evidence for anything in particular, and an awareness that "all models are wrong" applies at the meta-scientific level as well. |