[i习作temp] Issue 184 不知道可不可以这么写求狂拍啊 [复制链接]

qyr1987
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电梯直达

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发表于 2010-2-9 00:36:04 |只看该作者 |倒序浏览

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

Is it really a grave mistake to theorize without data as the author assert? I beg to differ from the assertion made by author. It should be the determined on a case by case basis for different realms-science, politics and business, and art.

In the field of science, data play a crucial role in helping establish and develop a theory, even being a litmus test for some of the hypotheses before they becoming truth. Firstly, some of the theories were directly built on the underpinning of data; for example, the structure of DNA was found by analyzing data about the energy it released during the process of restructuring. Secondly, there are some hypotheses out of imagination and eventually tested by data; the discovery of the ring shape of the benzene molecule should be a paradigmatic example; Kekule originally came up with the hypotheses all by dreaming a shake chasing its tail, and subsequently he verified it with some data referring to the energy needed to form such a structure. Thirdly, there are empirical evidence become the theory and being proved by data, the Pythagoras theorem for instance. In short, data is indispensable in the science field to theorize in most cases.

As for the realm of politics and business, even data can not be that reliable to theorize. Since most of the data of these two realms are demographic and statistic ones, they fail to include all the information needed to help form the theory about how the political and commercial mechanism works and about how to weigh the merits and demerits. For example, businessmen often obtain the data of buying inclination by means of questionnaire; it could be misleading and partially generalized if they only theorize with those data because most of the surveys are made in urban areas where people are relatively more likely to consume with relatively more money, and respondents may do the survey perfunctorily. The similar thing happens in the political field as well; if the government is to build a chemical plant nearby the urban area, only data of growth in tax or of the amount of polluted air that may emit can not help theorize the whole issue since it refers to many moral or potential concerns like the harm to the people's health, the potential threat to the safety of the city, and so forth. In a word, data are useful in both the two realms, but we can not completely count on that for further theorize.

However, in the arena of art, data are of little help for theorizing. As artists all have their own aesthetic standard and ideas, some of them developed set of ideas which become their sharing theory about what are their artworks like; that even induce the foundation of a exclusive school. Take those painters as example; their different theories about how lines should be used and about how pigments should be used are characterized them by different schools, while data could not be found in their theories. Can not imagine what if Vincent van Gogh illustrated his impressionism with how many lines being used. Query whether Salvador Dali could define his surrealism with how many kind of pigment utilized.

In the final analysis, the assertion made by the author flies in the face of some empirical evidence when referring to different realms; for science, data is indispensable to theorize; for politics and business, useful but unreliable; for arts, of little value.