The Waking

  One of the useful things I got from spending several decades working in the social sciences was seeing the importance of holding onto theories very lightly and being prepared to let go of one theory in favour of a better one when the data supported it. Although this is a drastic simplification, the process went something like this:     • You study some aspect of the world that you want to understand better.     • If there is currently no adequate theory that helps in understanding that aspect of the world then you develop one.     • From that theory you derive one or more measurable, testable hypotheses.     • You do an experiment to gather data that indicates whether your hypothesis is correct and therefore whether your theory needs changing or can stay as it is, for now… So far this is a brief description of a fairly standard way of doing science, known as the hypothetico-deductive method as described by Karl Popper among others. However,...