Theory is not raw data. To borrow a bit from Kant: “perception without conception is blind, conception without perception is empty.”. Without applying any reasoning or any concepts to the data, it won’t be very useful. Theory is about analysis of data. It’s about linking previous knowledge and research together with newly found data to analyse. Theory is what makes the data relevant. Theory also serves as a cornerstone for us to understand things in life.
I thought it was quite interesting that papers are sometimes rejected on the basis of too little theory. This really shows which significance the theory actually has. The results aren’t in themselves very interesting but it’s when we start to analyse it and try to understand the reasons of why the results came out as they did that it starts to become interesting.
One thing that I’ve thought about is whether theory is qualitative or not. Surely it is, but is it only the qualitative part of for example a research paper? If it was then theory would be subject of the writer’s interpretations, which it is to some degree. Theory is dependent on already established knowledge and it will have observations or data to support it. These observations and data should be captured as objectively as possible. The amount of data backing up a theory is then what determines a large part of the strength of the theory. Combining data from different places to form an argument is also important for the strength of the theory. It’s similar to how cross referencing in journalism will increase the credibility of a news report.
What I think is important to point out is that theory is a layered construct. Theory is built with the help of earlier theories. The wheel isn’t reinvented for every research article for example. What kind of implications might this have then? A naive belief would be that since theories in part comes from earlier theories this will lead to an always expanding theory (if we use the term to encompass all existing theories). This would be wonderful but theories might actually be wrong. Maybe an observation wasn’t actually what you thought it was or a data set was tampered with. You would still be able to theorize on this and might actually come up with a reasonable explanation. Someone could then build his/her research on this and it could potentially start a chain of flawed theory. Obviusly the sooner you discover the flaws in a theory, the easier it will be to retract it and it will face less resistance than for a well established theory. One example would be the theory of evolution which still to this day faces criticism from creationists (though much less than before), even though it has a lot of evidence to back it up.
It’s interesting to see what a big role the natural sciences have come to play in the forming of theories. The scientific community is actually serving as a gatekeeper and it’s deciding what papers and with that theories, that get published. This should result in that only strong enough theory is published.
The notion of theory is not black and white. At first I didn’t really see the point of dividing theory into different types. After discussing this topic more I do think that this classification can be quite useful. Mainly to see that all research doesn’t have the same purpose. Some can focus on only explaining while other research also takes on the task of prediction. It emphasizes that there’s some flexibility in the word theory.
Salut,
SvaraRaderaOnce again you are raising some good point in your reflection. I didn't really consider that theory can be neglected even though the results are really impressive or original. As you say, if there is too little theory involved, there is no reason to move forward with those research. I guess it stays in the definition of theory and that those rejected are way too close to raw data than the actual meaning of what this means.
I agree with the constructing theory over other theory that having a flaw at the base of the theory may result in a flaw of the rest of those theory based on it. However even know they may be all wrong, the way they constructed on each other can still offer good reflection and useful information.
however on the point saying creationist criticism the theory of evolution, it seems a bit ludicrous. Even if criticism can come in all form, I'm not sure that if a theory is facing criticism from a theory from the old age it would impact his veracity. I would understand more if some other body of the science committee would interfere and ask questions about it. I mean q certain degree of credibility would be a start in order to value a critic.
Thank for the reading very interesting stuff !
Hi! Nice reflection I enjoyed reading the different links that you make with theory.
SvaraRaderaYour comparison of how the power of theory is an argument that is build on data from different perspectives and journalism also using multilevel of sources is interesting. I didn’t think about it in that way. Just like journalists have a gatekeeper, in research the peer-to-peer review is a way to check if the used theory is valid and to improve the objectivity.
Very interesting perspective!
Hi! I really enjoyed reading your post. It is clear that you have done some reflecting on the theme, and you've successfully been able to translate that into words.
SvaraRaderaYour passage about "a chain of flawed theory" is, in my opinion, the absolute strongest part of your post. It is highly relevant, and it is a topic that tends to inhabit my mind very often. What of the perceptions of knowledge that we have today is jsut a second layer of an actually flawed idea? In media and on my social media feeds, I hear a lot of criticism of the nation state. So many other ideas (social welfare, education, hospitals etc) are build on the fact that the nation state is a good idea. But what if that very original idea itself is flawed? I myself do not believe it is, but it might be food for thought.
Again - thanks for a nice read!
Hello, and thank you for opening up your thoughts here as well as in the first blog post. :) First of all, I really enjoyed your choice of an article. It was highly relevant for the science of media technology and also because the algorithms strongly shape our experiences and development in the technological environment we're living at the moment. However, I would have liked to hear more about the theoretical framework of the study, on which the researchers were leaning the whole study for.
SvaraRaderaAbout the concept of theory, I ha a few similar thoughts with you on that matter. Nice and profound reflecting, great jog! :) What I found especially interesting in this post was the part of scientific community serving as a gatekeepers in terms of deciding what papers and theories get published. You stated yourself that this should lead to the fact that only strong theories get published – and I'd like to think that too – but unfortunately it still doesn't guarantee anything. The scientific standards seem to have surprisingly big differences between countries and cultures, and sometimes even an impact factor doesn't tell whether the study is actually well-conducted or not. I believe that at some extent we can even see the problem of subjectivity here: the "system" evaluating academic papers is built of human beings. There's always real persons on the evaluation board, and just recently we got to learn that some of the sugar related studies in the 60's, which were conducted by Harvard scientists, showed sugar in positive light because of the bribes that the researchers got from the sugar industry. This is truly scary, what else has the "absolute" scientific authority told us that isn't true?
I think your post was very interesting and easy to read, thank you! I though it was interesting what you wrote about how significance the theory actually is, and that papers sometimes get rejected due to too little theory. I hadn't really thought about the importance of theory before this theme.
SvaraRaderaI found what you wrote about the scientific community acting like gatekeepers regarding which theories and papers does or doesn't get published, and that resulting in only papers with strong theories getting published. However, even though that might be the goal, and a lot of the time also the case, like the comment above pointed out, it might not always be the case. The comment above gave the example of the sugar related study and how it was "sponsored" by the sugar industry. I would like to provide a different example pointing out the system not always working. The Sokal Affair, or the Sokal Hoax, from 1996, where Alan Sokal submitted an artical to an academic journal as an experiment to test the journal's intellectual rigor. After it was published he announced that it was a hoax and that the papers was outright nonsense, resulting in a lot of debate about scholarly merit, academic ethics, and on social disciplines in general.
Hello and thank you for your thoughtful explanation of what theory is and how are we to understand it. The thing that made me think the most in your blogpost was the thought if theory is qualitative or not. I’m not sure if my understanding is wrong, but I understood that qualitative and quantitative describe the method in a research and no the theory that is coming out in the end. Theory mostly has it’s roots in qualitative or quantitative methodically collected data. The theory itself is neither of them. But that was just my understanding. It would be nice to have a discussion about this :).
SvaraRaderaHello!
SvaraRaderaI think you made some good conclusions. I also think its important to point out that theories are build with help of other theories. This existing theories provides guidance to news ideas and hypothesis. This new hypothesis can bee tested, and if not rejected the researchers can come up with conclusions, if replicated multiple times and supported of different scientists, it can become a basis for a theory. The theory must have evidence and observations of specific phenomena. And as you wrote this leads to an always expanding theory. As well as new theories creates, the old ones are out of date and rejects.
Good job with your blog post!