If I present you data that says areas with a lot of storks have higher birthrates, do you think someone should set up an experiment to disprove how storks bring babies?
An actual scientist will be the first to disregard pure empiricism, because otherwise it would literally impossible for science to be done. An empiricist like Hume would be the first to tell you that causality does not exist, we can’t guarantee the Sun will come up tomorrow, no matter how much observation or clever theories we have.
The example doesn’t only highlight the difference between correlation and causation, it’s just one of the ways naive data fetishism is ineffective science. There is no science without experimentation, and there is no experimentation without theoretical frameworks.
My point is not that we should not test. My point is that we should, and that we can draw connected conclusions based on test results that enable us to predict outcomes in similar situations and conditions, but that which are fundamentally novel. This is why we have a theory of gravity, we can observe how physics works generally to apply to new particular instances, rather than testing it each and every time.
If I present you data that says areas with a lot of storks have higher birthrates, do you think someone should set up an experiment to disprove how storks bring babies?
An actual scientist will be the first to disregard pure empiricism, because otherwise it would literally impossible for science to be done. An empiricist like Hume would be the first to tell you that causality does not exist, we can’t guarantee the Sun will come up tomorrow, no matter how much observation or clever theories we have.
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The example doesn’t only highlight the difference between correlation and causation, it’s just one of the ways naive data fetishism is ineffective science. There is no science without experimentation, and there is no experimentation without theoretical frameworks.
Very well said, much more clear than me!
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My point is not that we should not test. My point is that we should, and that we can draw connected conclusions based on test results that enable us to predict outcomes in similar situations and conditions, but that which are fundamentally novel. This is why we have a theory of gravity, we can observe how physics works generally to apply to new particular instances, rather than testing it each and every time.
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