What I have learned week 48

This week has mainly been about the concept of theory, what it is, and what theory is not. This week I discovered that the concept of theory is quite hard to define, but there exist rules and examples on what theory is and was it not.

We have read two texts this week, one that try to explain different kind of theories and one that explain what theories is not. We also read a paper from a good journal (impact factor > 1), and discussed the theories that exist in our papers. In my paper I argued for my paper was of an analysis type of theory, according to Gregory text. Even if they had some explanations, they mix the explanations with references in a way that I must read the references in order to understand the explanations. This week we have among other learned that references is not theory, and that’s why I claim that my text was of an analysis type.

Unfortunately I was sick to the second seminaries, it was something that I looked forward to, especially sense we didn’t discuss so much about the concept of theory on the first seminar, but discussed our papers and journals quality instead. Something I wanted to discuss was the different theory types, that where discussed in Gregory’s text. For me was my paper an analysis type, because the way the text uses references. But it had some short explanation, that where mixed a bit with references. But my text was very technical, and the short explains had a few mathematical formulations that I didn’t understand. I maybe do if I study it a bit more, but not by just reading it. It when occurred to me that a text could be of different types, depending on the knowledge from the person reading it. For example if someone read a text that is of explanation type, but have low prior knowledge on the subject, the person could claim the text to be analysis, because the reader didn’t get the explanation. The reader in question understands “what it is”, but not “why” or “how”. While another reader with good prior knowledge could claim that the text is of an explanation type, sense he understand the whole text, and then know “what it is, why and how”. So in order to determine with type of theory a text belongs to, it requires a reader with “the right” prior knowledge to the subject. I would for example find it hard to truly decide what kind of theory a paper is, if the paper is written to quantum physicists.

I find the text “what theory is not” to be interesting even if it had (for me) some obvious points, like “data is not theory”. But I do think it is a common mistake for authors, to use data as theory. I think it could be done easily, if I author is really focused about the text and the meaning of the data seems obvious for the author. If the meaning of the data is obvious for the writer, it’s easy to think that the meaning of the data is obvious for all readers. But it’s not; it’s imported to tell why the data is important for the theory, and how it is important.