Center for Analysis and Design of Intelligent Agents

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Philosophy of Science III

Theory (Icel. kenning)	“A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.”
Theory: The coherent story	The ability of individuals and groups to create “coherent stories” of how phenomena in the world are connected and produce rigorous models that support the stories is a necessary condition for scientific progress.
Theories	Explains the connections between things in the world
Hypothesis (Icel. tilgáta)	A prediction about the relationship between a limited set of phenomena, as explained by a particular theory.
Support from evidence	The strongest form of evidence is rigorous hypothesis testing using scientific experimentation: clearly thought-out tests of the claims that naturally fall out of the Theory to be tested. It helps if the hypotheses concern unexpected results.

Very powerful method	Given theory X, if one can deduce a relationship that has to hold between A and B, where A and B are the domain of a particular theory, and that relationship is falisifed through an experimental procedure that can be replicated by anyone, then obvioulsy theory X has been disproven.
Problem	Although scientific knowledge is the most reliable knowledge there is, most scientific theories at any point in time are theories in flux.
Theories in flux	Counter to what many think, theories almost never pop out complete and finished. The become assembled piece by piece, until there are so few pieces left that someone figures out the full picture. In the mean time, however, it is easy to falisfy hypotheses based on the theory, which, in the early stages, may not be much of a theory.
Science builds theories	The theory - hypothesis distinction is a convenience. In reality this is a continuum. Which means that theories are in various forms of growth.
Conclusion	We need a mixture of methods during the development of theories.