PSYC 3200 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Explained Variation, Theory X And Theory Y, Observational Error
19 Dec 2013
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Theories can save us in the misery of science. They test hypotheses, more objective, falsifiable, derive from theories; most sciences use experiments (except astronomy: sciences have relationships with the outside world. Non-sciences but there are philosophical and musical theories, history hypotheses and facts, but they don"t define what a science is: mathematics do not have relationships with the physical world because we invent math. If you have no theory to test something, then you have every right to say why a correlation occurs (ex. Theory can explain a collection of interrelated statements (to get predictions; a series of hypotheses: new technology forces us to get something right, to prevent us from making mistakes, the way to change our mind. A bad theory cannot be tested whether it is right or wrong. A good theory needs to be clear, falsifiable, testable. The better the theory, the better we can get the science right.
