John F. Sowa wrote: (01)
> There's nothing new in that article:
>
> http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/16-07/pb_theory
> The End of Theory: The Data Deluge Makes the Scientific Method Obsolete
>
> Ibn Taymiyya said it earlier and better. ...
> It all depends on how general your generalizations are, and how many
> exceptions there are. If the exceptions outnumber the generalizations,
> it's far better to go back to raw data and use analogical reasoning.
> Taymiyya said that, and he was right. (02)
But there is a host of difficulties with that, and the internet has made
them manifest. The "data deluge" doesn't often come with clear
"provenance metadata" -- who collected this data, and what were the
circumstances and method of collection. It is easy to draw erroneous
analytical conclusions, or find numerous fake exceptions to a
theoretical result, by considering "inappropriate" data to be relevant.
The internet is replete with data that is "inappropriate" by being
outright false, but even with data that was validly captured and
reported, it is not often easy to find out the values of the context
variables. (03)
The advantage of legal precedent is that you have a well-known and
reliable set of records that contains all of the contextual information
that was available to the judges at the time the decision was made. So
one can argue not only for precedent, but also about the relevance of a
particular decision to the issue at hand, based on other elements in the
context of that decision. (04)
[You have to realize that NIST is a scientific institution that prides
itself on scientific conservatism. We publish a lot of data, and a lot
of analytical and theoretical results. But when we generalize beyond
what we have observed and can prove, we call it 'hypothesis'. Good
science will always survive the deluge of undocumented data.
Credibility is more important than visibility.] (05)
-Ed (06)
--
Edward J. Barkmeyer Email: edbark@xxxxxxxx
National Institute of Standards & Technology
Manufacturing Systems Integration Division
100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8263 Tel: +1 301-975-3528
Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8263 FAX: +1 301-975-4694 (07)
"The opinions expressed above do not reflect consensus of NIST,
and have not been reviewed by any Government authority." (08)
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