TOPIC: ISSUE184 - "It is a grave mistake to theorize before one has data."

WORDS:375          TIME: 0:50:00          DATE: 2009-2-16

 

According to the title statement, it is a grave mistake to theorize before one has data. While I agree that data is very important to stabilize one's theory, I insist that sometime we can put forward a theory before we have data. In order words, scientists should not wait to theorize until they obtain too much data, this phenomenon is equally leads to grave consequences.

In academic physics field, scientists tend to thought experiments in the form of imaginary, some time they use mathematics method to derive a new formula without using any data. Like Albert Einstein when he first put forward his principle of relativity, it is pure mathematics formula in his paper and has a few support data. Because, at that time, the start of the 20's century, the experiment technique and condition is not highly develop. However, to validate his theory with data, the experiment must be set up precisely. Until now, some deduces of his relativity has not been approved with data yet.

Therefore, in many time, scientists use thought experiments when particular physical experiments are impossible to conduct, in fact, it was never carried out, but this unique use of scientific thought experiment led to a successful theory that was proven by other empirical means.

In addition, scientist also use proxy experiments which they conduct prior to a real physical experiment, and the result of the proxy experiment will often be so clear that there will be no need to conduct a physical experiment at all. In medical fields, a newly-develop medicine should not be used on human beings before it test hundreds more times on the experimental animals. Scientist uses these animals to validate their theory and collect the relative data to confer its effects.

However, after one's theory is established, the support data become very important to stabilize a theory and it makes it appear to lend more credence to the theory than the theory actually does. And in common sense it is impossible to theorize in the first place without at least some data.

To conclude, there is no easy solution to such a complex issue. However, taking into account all the dimensions discussed in the above analysis might be a decisive step out of this dilemma.

 

字数不够，感觉没什么可写的，论证过于宽泛..真的得努力了！

要不就完了.....