Let’s say you start with 10 hypotheses, test them empirically, and 5 fail. So you now have five not-wrong hypotheses. But which is the least wrong, assuming that they are equally predictive?
At this point, many people would appeal to parsimony. But theoretical parsimony is not empirical, and does not have an empirical justification. The various justifications for the various simplicity criteria use typically philosophical reasoning.
What were we hoping to get out parsimony, that we don’t already have on the basis of empirical testing? Correspondence to the territory, some kind of statement about the world. That creates a dilemma. Either we accept that purely empirical science is instrumentalist and incapable of informing us about reality; or we need to use philosophical reasoning in science.
Of course , scientists will object that they are not self consciously and explicitly engaging in philosophical reasoning … and they are not! Scientists typically accept claims like
Let’s say you start with 10 hypotheses, test them empirically, and 5 fail. So you now have five not-wrong hypotheses. But which is the least wrong, assuming that they are equally predictive?
At this point, many people would appeal to parsimony. But theoretical parsimony is not empirical, and does not have an empirical justification. The various justifications for the various simplicity criteria use typically philosophical reasoning.
What were we hoping to get out parsimony, that we don’t already have on the basis of empirical testing? Correspondence to the territory, some kind of statement about the world. That creates a dilemma. Either we accept that purely empirical science is instrumentalist and incapable of informing us about reality; or we need to use philosophical reasoning in science.
Of course , scientists will object that they are not self consciously and explicitly engaging in philosophical reasoning … and they are not! Scientists typically accept claims like
*science tells you about the world
*simplicity is important
*Simplicity has something to do with truth.
..as givens. But that doesn’t help at all.