Hello everyone and welcome to Improve your thinking. I’m your host Kevin Browne and today I want to talk a little about how to evaluate your beliefs, opinions, and theories using something called the search formula. This formula comes from a book titled How to Think About Weird Things. It is a great guide to assessing any claim and possible explanations for it. SEARCH is an acronym that stands for:
State the claim. Examine the Evidence for the claim. Consider Alternative hypotheses. Rate, according to the Criteria of adequacy, each Hypothesis. As we’ll see there are several parts of this process that are especially difficult. Among these, the most difficult for people seem to be considering alternative hypotheses. Another way of putting this is to consider the evidence against the claim you are evaluating. The reason this is so difficult is due to something called confirmation bias: the tendency we all have to look only for evidence that confirms our own beliefs. But, to really evaluate any claim, you need to look at all the evidence, not just the evidence in favor of the claim. So, by all means, look at all the evidence for the claim you are investigating. But, then do what may seem counterintuitive, even counterproductive: look at the evidence against your claim. Be sure to look at it with an eye toward fair evaluation. Don’t simply look at it to dismiss it. Above all, don’t look at a biased form of this evidence. You know what I mean. Don’t go to a source that is arguing for the position you agree with and simply take what they say about the evidence against the claim. Look to the best possible sources of evidence against your claim. That way you know you are really evaluating your claim not simply endorsing what you already agree with. To ensure you are really doing this rate each hypothesis you are considering according to 5 criteria of adequacy. These criteria are: Testability, fruitfulness, scope, and whether an explanation is simple and conservative. Let’s look at each of them. First, a theory should be testable. If you cannot even figure out how to go about determining if your theory explains the evidence, you don't have a good theory. To be testable means your hypothesis "predicts something more than what is predicted by the background theory alone." In short, we need this criterion because if there's no way to tell whether a theory is true or false it's really no good to us. Second, a theory should be fruitful. What this means is that a good theory should make novel predictions. It should not only account for the evidence at hand but be able to address evidence that comes in later and even predict such new evidence. Einstein's theory of relativity is a good example of a fruitful theory because it made the novel prediction that light would be visible from a star behind the sun. After all, the light would be bent by the gravitational field around the sun to be visible on earth. And, concerning criterion number one, this was a testable claim. Once tested, it was verified. Third, a theory should have a wide scope. That is, a good theory explains a wide field of evidence. One of the differences between theories and hypotheses is their scope. Hypotheses address specific questions whereas theories attempt to provide a broad explanatory device. Theories that can explain a wide array of things are preferred, other things being equal, to more narrow theories. Fourth, a theory should be simple. This term should not be confused with simplistic. Many scientific theories are complex in terms of our ability to understand them but simple in the sense that they postulate fewer underlying entities or assumptions. A good example is the difference between Copernicus and Ptolemy. Ptolemy's geocentric theory could explain the orbits of the planets but it was quite complex whereas Copernicus' theory explained the same observable phenomena with less complexity. So, other things being equal, that theory was the better theory. Think of it this way. Suppose I come up with a theory to explain how the lights in my housework but it involves little gremlins running inside the light bulbs. Someone else can explain the same phenomenon but without postulating gremlins. So, their theory is simpler than mine. It should also be pointed out that my gremlin theory may fail on other criteria as well such as being testable. Finally, a theory should be conservative. Not in the political sense of the word. Rather, it should fit in with other things we know. If we have an explanation for something that we think is fairly certain and accurate then a new theory should fit in with that prior explanation. If it doesn't fit that may indicate our prior knowledge is flawed. We have to be open to that possibility but the burden of proof is on the new theory. An interesting examination of how this process works is offered by Thomas Kuhn's book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. you may be inclined to lodge the following criticism at this point: But, that’s "just a theory." The criticism here is supposed to be that any given theory is not an established fact. But, this misunderstands the relationship between fact and theory. No theory is a fact because facts and theories are two different things entirely. The facts are what we observe about the world around us. But, these facts need an explanation. This is what a theory is designed to do. It is a well-formulated attempt to explain the facts we observe. So, we observe the motion of the planets and the fact that an apple falls to the ground when we drop it. The theory of relativity attempts to explain these things. We observe different species and varieties of animals in the natural world and the theory of evolution attempts to explain how these varieties arose. We observe the motion of subatomic particles and the theory of quantum mechanics attempts to explain these observations. In each case, we begin with observations and construct an explanation to account for them. In each case, it makes little sense to criticize the theory by saying it's not a fact. Of course not! Theories are not facts and do not attempt to be. Theories can be correct or incorrect and the criteria outlined above are the best way to determine this. But, you must also understand what a theory is attempting to do. Another important consideration concerning evaluating theories is the notion of proof. People often misunderstand the concept of proof by thinking that proving something demonstrates conclusively that something must be true. While this may be the case for deductive arguments, it cannot be that way for inductive arguments which are based on probability. Since most philosophical (and scientific) arguments are inductive, it is impossible to conclusively prove the conclusion of these arguments true. That is, we will not be able to preclude evidence that may arise in the future to count against our conclusion. This being the case proofs in philosophy tended to attempt to find the most probable conclusion that fits the available evidence. As the scientist, Arthur Stanley Eddington put it "We cannot pretend to offer proofs. the proof is an idol before whom the pure mathematician tortures himself: In physics, we are generally content to sacrifice before the lesser shrine of plausibility." Proof is a seriously misunderstood word. This probably accounts for its rare usage in the natural sciences. In one important sense no one can "prove" the theory of evolution, or the big bang theory, or relativity, or string theory, or whatever theory you want to talk about. But, that does not mean that there is insufficient evidence to warrant thinking these are good theories. To use Eddington's words, we can say these theories are plausible. In some cases, very plausible. Another factor that often leads to misunderstandings about theories and proofs is that, in science, theories are the best explanations we have so far for the phenomena in question. But, as the philosopher of science, Karl Popper pointed out, "the demand for scientific objectivity makes it inevitable that every scientific statement must remain tentative forever.” It is always possible that new evidence arises that shows that our current theories are false. We have to remain open to that possibility. We should remain open to that possibility for our beliefs as well. They may be true given what we know right now, but what we know can change and if so, our beliefs should also change. As the economist, John Maynard Keynes is reputed to have said: When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do? If you’ve enjoyed this podcast what I hope you do is subscribe and visit me online at kevinjbrowne.com. Thanks for listening and I’ll see you on the next episode.
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kevin j. brownePhilosopher | Educator Archives
July 2022
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