issue184 by lesheng

qinleshengUID: 2309050

TOPIC: ISSUE184 - "It is a grave mistake to theorize before one has data."
WORDS: 612          TIME: 01:10:00          DATE: 2009/2/18 11:41:47
When it comes to the issue of a new theory or a new concept, whether the proposer have sufficient data to support his/her idea is of paramount importance for others to accept his/her conclusion.Could a theory without data could be seen as a reliable one?This,in my eyes, should be based on a case-by-case study.
In some areas,philosophy for example, data is not necessarily a indispensable part of the theory.Kant,the great German philosopher, spent almost all his life in Konigsberg and did not spare one single day to gather some data to support his book--Critique of Pure Reason.Perharps,in philosophy,what is matter is the philosopher's logic and insight rather than mathmatic numbers.In this area, if the theory is already good enough for us to at least believe part of the philosopher's claim, there are no reasons the philosopher should bother with the data.
However, in some other areas,especially those requires some evidence to format the conclusion,the most effective way is for someone to collect enough data before a decision is made.In business world, when a FMCG(Fast Moving
Consumer Goods) company intends to know whether the consumers are satisfied with the existing products and what kind of new things are expected by them, the FMCG company would usually hire a market-research company like AC Nielsen,TNS to figure out the answers.In psychoanalysis,one of the psychatrist's daily job is to see and talk with the patients.Hardly can Freud finish The Interpretation of Dreams if he does not help to explain the dreams to his patients.
As we mentioned, while data is not necessary in philosophy,it could deeply affect a company's decision or a psychoanalyst's prescription.Then if the scientist could not gain data due to the limit of the experiment, is it possible to establish a valuable theory? The answer is absolutely yes! Mendeleyev,creator of the first version of the periodic table of elements,used the table to predict the properties of element yet to be discovered without performing any chemical experiments.Even sometimes, the experiment could never happen in reality(The experiment could only be conducted in the scientist's imagination) such as Einstein's thought experiment of chasing a light beam,leading to Special Relativity.This illustrates that it is entirely possible to propose a theory without data even in traditional data-oriented subjects like physics and chemistry.
The requirement of the data in a theory could be attributed to the following two reasons: Firstly, without data, a theory could not be formulated,like the one we mentioned in the psychoanalysis area; Secondly, the proposer of the theory badly need the data to convince others, such as the one we included in the business world.In the latter case, data is like the bricks of a house or the backbone of a person, after all, the investors,aimed at getting their money 100 times back,could only be convinced by the data in the balance sheet.In the former case, it is a kind of pure scientific pursuit and it is universally acknowledged that in scientific areas,some inspirations or some guesses are generated prior to the experiments or exact data.The conception of gravitational deflection of lights proposed in 1913 by Einstein is not accepted by the scientists around the world until the solar eclipse in 1919.
Generally speaking, in the pure pursuit of scientific achievement, it is ok if one has a theory which is not proved or disproved;After all, a failure is acceptable in the endeavor and is the highway to success because every discovery of what is false leads us to seek after what is true.However,from the perspective of utilitarianism,in some situations like business world, adequate data could not only reinforced the shareholder's confidence but also reduce the potential risk of a company to a great extent.