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Re: strong theories, weak theories, not-even-wrong theories



John,

I agree wholeheartly with the spirit of John's comments. If a theory needs
to be adjusted independently for each circumstance, then it is of no
particular value to the theory.

That said, I think that 1b) and 2b) are of some value and that a different
example might be better. John wasn't thinking of time as a factor, as I
did when first reading his example. If I want to predict MY weight
tomorrow, (b) works quite well, but (a) will be just as far off tomorrow as
it is today. If I want to predict my 5 year old son's weight in a year,
(b) works quite well, but (a) will be roughly as far off next year as it is
today.

Tim Folkerts




Hi Folks --

Consider the following four theories:

1a) A person's weight is 1b) A person's weight is
proportional to proportional to
that person's height. that person's height,
but the constant of
proportionality changes
from person to person.

2a) A person's weight is 2b) A person's weight is
proportional to the cube of proportional to the cube of
that person's height. that person's height,
but the constant of
proportionality changes
from person to person.


What about theory 1b? In Fermi's immortal words, it is "not even wrong".
Indeed, theory 1b is *not* wrong. It's *true* that each person has a
weight-to-height ratio. But this is not physics. It's not science. It
has no predictive power.


Comments, anyone?