[pradocchia]

In science, the explanation is both the cart and the horse.

I'm sorry, but no. Observation comes first, then hypotheses, then prediction, then verification. Explanations go from proposed to confirmed, but they are certainly not the genesis of scientific knowledge. The phenomenon itself must come first, otherwise all you have is the fitting of facts to theory.

So, we have observations w/out a coherent, compelling, or generally agreed-to theory. If and when a successful theory is developed, it will predict observations to date and predict more effects not yet observed or observed and ignored. Well, that sounds like a pretty exciting field of science, actually.

[lutusp]

>> In science, the explanation is both the cart and the horse.

> I'm sorry, but no. Observation comes first, then hypotheses, then prediction, then verification.

The corpus of scientific theory is a set of tested, falsifiable explanations. Legitimate sciences don't rely on mere descriptions, even well-tested ones.

But let's take your claim and test it scientifically -- let's assume that we don't need explanations, we can get by with your stated criteria: observations, "hypotheses, then prediction, then verification." Here goes:

Let's say I'm a doctor and I've created a revolutionary cure for the common cold. My cure is to shake a dried gourd over the cold sufferer until he gets better. The cure might take a week, but it always works. My method is repeatable and perfectly reliable, and I've published my cure in a refereed scientific journal (there are now any number of phony refereed scientific journals). And, because (in this thought experiment) science can get along without defining theories, I'm under no obligation to try to explain my cure, or consider alternative explanations for my breakthrough — I only have to describe it, just like a psychologist.

Because I've cured the common cold, and because I've met all the requirements that psychology recognizes for science, I deserve a Nobel Prize. Yes or no?

Ask yourself what's wrong with this picture, and notice that the same thing is wrong with psychology — all description, no explanation, no established principles on which different psychologists agree, no effort to build consensus, and no unifying theories.

> So, we have observations w/out a coherent, compelling, or generally agreed-to theory. If and when a successful theory is developed, it will predict observations to date and predict more effects not yet observed or observed and ignored. Well, that sounds like a pretty exciting field of science, actually.

Yes -- and shaking a dried gourd can cure the common cold.

[pradocchia]

To continue your thought experiment, another researcher designs a new, double-blind trial of gourds, and discovers that while gourds per se have no effect, the placebo effect is statistically significant.

There is no explanation for WHY expectations would effect outcomes. In fact, any explanation at this stage would be provisional and highly suspect. And yet, there it is. What are we to do, ignore this phenomenon as if it didn't exist? Question the statistical ability of the researcher, and all other researchers who document a placebo effect?

And lo, the messenger. Ready, aim, fire.

[lutusp]

> To continue your thought experiment, another researcher designs a new, double-blind trial of gourds, and discovers that while gourds per se have no effect, the placebo effect is statistically significant.

Without a search for causes, for explanations, even the placebo effect is routinely disregarded. For example, it has been recently discovered that all psychological therapies are equally efficacious. Until now, the assumption was that Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy was superior to others, but that's been disproven. But, even though all therapies produce the same outcome, no one in psychology seems willing to consider the idea that it's all placebo effect.

> In fact, any explanation at this stage would be provisional and highly suspect.

Except the one that Occam's razor suggests, the default assumption under these circumstances: placebo effect. Or, perhaps better, the non-explanation suggested by the null hypothesis -- nothing meaningful has been measured and no conclusions can be drawn, which I think is your point.

> What are we to do, ignore this phenomenon as if it didn't exist?

No, but as scientists, we would do well to avoid drawing any conclusions not supported by rigorous experiment -- including the responsibility to propose and then test a theory about what's been observed.

[md224]

I'm not really sure what you guys are arguing about... obviously observations and descriptions are an important first step toward developing scientific theories. Lutusp seems to be complaining about people who feel descriptions are sufficient and make no effort to discern the underlying mechanism. Is there really disagreement on this point?

If there is, then maybe this is just a debate about Instrumentalism:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumentalism

[lutusp]

> Lutusp seems to be complaining about people who feel descriptions are sufficient and make no effort to discern the underlying mechanism. Is there really disagreement on this point?

Yes, among psychologists, who insist that explanations aren't necessary, that it's science even if no one tries to identify a cause for the effect being measured. But this assumption is now under serious challenge, as more and more emphasis is being placed on a search for causes, to the degree that the director of the NIMH recently ruled that the DSM (psychology's "bible") will no longer be accepted as a source for science (it will remain as a diagnostic guide).

The practical meaning of this change is that researchers who apply for funding through the NIMH will need to avoid using the DSM's symptomatic categories as a basis for research -- they instead need to express their proposals in more scientific terms, in terms of causes, not just effects. In other words, explanations, not just descriptions.

[arkades]

"I'm sorry, but no. Observation comes first, then hypotheses, then prediction, then verification. Explanations go from proposed to confirmed, but they are certainly not the genesis of scientific knowledge.

Not really. I mean, I appreciate the old "Scientific Method" card, that doesn't actually describe how it happens, pretty much ever. All observations happen schematically: by the time you're in grade-school, you've already gotten a basic grounder in Science: The Lies to Children Edition, and all future observations and learning are elaborations on the groundwork. Observations without theory happen at somewhere around, I don't know, age 2. By the time you can speak, you've already started the process of sense-making. In reality, observation always happens against the background of pre-existing theory. It's turtles, all the way down. (This is hardly ground-breaking: Thomas Kuhn was discussing this half a century ago).

"The phenomenon itself must come first, otherwise all you have is the fitting of facts to theory."

Which is precisely what we do. We collect facts, interpret them (that is, use them as a representation of underlying trends or relationships), and then collect more facts to see if our generalization holds true beyond the initial dataset that we used to generate our ideas. Science is absolutely about fitting facts to theory, and then collecting more facts to test that theory, and then elaborating that theory based on those new facts. It's entirely circular (for at least the last few centuries): no modern scientist sets out gathering observations without any pre-existing theory in his head.

[pradocchia]

Right, so you are describing what Kuhn termed the period of "normal science": theory in hand, collect new facts, fit facts to theory, repeat.

HOWEVER, that theory-in-hand rests on an earlier paradigm shift, where previously anomalous observations were re-integrated via some new conceptual framework that better accounted for all observations, not merely the conformed ones that scientists had focused on in the prior period of normal science.

So yeah, perhaps in the day-in, day-out existence of professional scientists, most work is fitting facts to theory. However, that theory exists because facts come first, because at some point in the past, mounting factual evidence overwhelmed the theoretical biases of an earlier generation.

Do I really need to spell this out for the HN crowd? For you, who reference Kuhn?

[lutusp]

> no modern scientist sets out gathering observations without any pre-existing theory in his head.

Or without the intent to shape a new theory, a new, testable inductive generalization, as when Einstein shaped special relativity. That's my favorite example because it happened in a theory vacuum, no pun intended. There must be a theory to inform the research, or the research must lead to a testable theory, or both.