Issue 184第一次修改，欢迎大家拍砖，多谢多谢哈

danmarkUID: 2742017

题目：ISSUE184 - "It is a grave mistake to theorize before one has data."
Are data indispensable for theories? As far as I'm concerned, the answer depends. I'd like to divide the "theory" mentioned in the statement into three parts: natural sciences, social sciences and humanities. In natural sciences, like chemistry, physics and biology, the allocation and analysis of data are vital before we get any conclusion. The same applies in social sciences, but data alone are neither convincing nor sufficient to illustrate certain hypotheses and statements. As for humanities, such as philosophy and literature, data seem not as critical as in the former two types of disciplines. All in all, the necessity of data before theorizing depends on the nature of different academic fields.

Data are of great importance to any valid theory in natural sciences in two dimensions. First and foremost, it's fair to say that the data remain as the basis for theorizing. Without the support of accurate and representative figures, none of the scientific breakthroughs can be boasted about as truths even in a limited scope. The reasons that the promising engineering project and cloning technology are far from mature lie in their lack of access to enough experimental samples and related information. Secondly, a theory conjured up without the benefit of data amounts to little more than the theorist's hope, surmise and desire—what he or she wants to be true or perceives to be true. By theorizing before collecting data the theorist also runs the risk of interpreting that data in a manner which makes it appear to lend more credence to the theory than it actually does or even fake the evidence that supports the theory, like the scandal of Hwang Woo-suk. The potential "degradation" of theorizing displays the special value of data collected through proper channels. In a word, data are evidence in the court of science and rationality.

Social sciences, after the behavioral revolution aimed at making themselves more "scientific", share large portions of characteristics with natural sciences including the stress on data. Considering their intimacy with complicated social-economic environment, however, we shall not be too simple-minded. Since our information age is crammed with innumerable data, the preferences among them may cause illusions. The leading U.S. political scientist, Samuel Huntington proposed the well-known theory of "Clashes between civilizations" on the ground of statistical analyses on cross-national conflicts. A compelling refute was "Clashes beneath civilizations", which took into account what Huntington ignored, for 911-the most conspicuous evidence of Huntington-was indeed less significant than Bosnian wars that occurred among Catholic states. Both sides of the debate relied on data but from different perspectives.

Other than the absence of complete information, we always ignore the comparison between today's data and that in history. For instance, few will doubt that unprecedented globalization prevails in modern society, illustrated by indexes and figures, but none notes the cross-continent interactions in previous times. According to Joseph Nye, the famous student in international relations theories,
the "globalization" right before First World War was much more typical than that in nowadays, when Britain and Germany shared as much as 70 percent of their GDP, far beyond the imaginations of contemporary strategic cooperative partners. Nonetheless, the incredible amount of mutual interest still brought the two super powers into war, thus the perpetual peace in Sino-US relations is unconvincing if only supported by economic cooperation. In all, in the elusive social spheres, the improper applications of data in developing theories may cheat even the intellectual elites, let alone we masses.

In contrast with science, humanities are relatively independent from various samples and surveys. When Hegel proposed the term "dialectics", he never imagined that his descendants would detect the plausibility of this vague idea. Brilliant writers often neglect or even despise numbers and demography. Instead, their great works derive from emotions, intuitions and intellects. Any form of mathematics and statistics is necessary in the eyes of most scholars in humanities whose "theories"-if they are theories rather than critics or fantasies-are abstract enough to transcend the rule of any concrete figure.

In sum, different academic fields have different attitudes towards data. Undoubtedly, data reflect plausibility of theories and the veracity of hypotheses, but may fall short of people's expectations now and then. Both ignorance or reverence of data are extremes. Instead, a case-by-case analysis is in demand to explore the connections between data and theorizing and, more often,
how to deal with certain data may be much more critical than date themselves.

danmarkUID: 2742017

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