issue184~

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

Dose it the truth that before one has data make any theory is always false as the article's author suggested? In response to the assertion, I need to analyze the proposition comprehensively and systematically. At the first glance, there are some merits from the author's claim, which I agree with, that data play an indispensable role on the situations when drawing a conclusion. However, after thorough consideration, I still can not totally agree with the author, as the assertion is some what flawed and defective, from my perspective, I think the author overlook the function position of data and may be somehow ignore other possible cases that may do not need have to provide data before make a theory.

First and foremost， it can not be denied that data is very crucial when judging whether a theory is credible or not and it is should be prepared and finished before drawing new theories in many case. To be honest, data which have been an essential part of our life, help people from calculating to summarizing rules or experiences. no matter how appealing
the theory is, people invariably have a thinking in mind that if it has strong evidences and mostly if it has enough and sound data. especially in the field of mathematics or physics, before learning a new theory, teachers mostly have to copy many formulations or telling a story of a famous theory, which stand for the credibility and authority.
what' more, the emerge of many excellent theories in history can also help to further illustrate it, for example, how big the universe,
of which of course anyone of us can
not
have a thorough sight, but based on some data collected through a certain long time from scientists, it has been proved that the universe infinite. in the sense, admittedly, i have to admit that data is an essential factor served as an evidence have its value before drawing a new theory in some degree.

In the second place, however, despite of the merits from the speaker's claim, I still disagree the assertion. In some certain realms or circumstances, data can also be later listed then making a conclusion, I will further justify it in the field of biology , it is common phenomenon that biologists always announce an assumption, which can be called as forming a hypothesis, and then use experiments to judge it is right or wrong, or achieve some relative experience from it. In these cases, it may be somehow blind to searching data with no clear aim.
Finally and may be the most importantly, the author fails to take some alternative explanations into account, the author simply tend to make a correlative between data and making a theory, but ignore that experiments and
experiences are also needed. there are some situations that data is very difficult to find, when experiment is essential and may be the only approach, typically in the domain of philosophy, for example, the art of war , written by Sun Tzu, has a tremendous influence on business or war affairs' strategies today, but with no data the book was just written by the author's summarizations of ancient china's battles and the laws of historical development.

from the analysis above, I can strongly commit to the optimal conclusion that it is unwarranted that data must be listed before theory, instead, in some cases, data can also be used after an theory is established for justifying it, and what's more there are some alternative avenues that guarantee a new theory come into being, data is not such needful in some particular cases. As a consequence,
the function of data to theory hinging on our attitudes towards it and may change due to distinctive circumstances, so we need to take every possibilities when judging this issue.