I'll accept that, if you will accept that the explanation is no more than a more usable description. :wink: — Banno

Help me out with that.

I take explanations to answer question of "why" and descriptions to answer questions of "what". Each then pertains to two different contexts of inquiry. Describing what a rock is does not explain why the rock is. But, yes, to explain why a rock is does necessitate some form of description of what a rock is.

Maybe of interest, in Romanian the term for "why" is "de ce" which literally translates into "from/for what". This too can illustrate that explanations of why are of a completely different nature than descriptions of what.

Likewise, to provide an explanation for a given description can make sense. Conversely, to provide a description of a given explanation doesn't, at least not at face value (unless, for example, one seeks to represent a given explanation via different words than the given explanation itself).

How do you differ?

So where you say
There are not innumerable possible plausible explanations.
— Janus
"plausible" adds the unjustified normative element that lets confirmation bias in. You can now reject all the implausible explanations.

But further, in the context of this thread, do you take abduction as helping answer Hume's scepticism? — Banno

Well, why not aim for the best explanation one can think of? Do you deny there are better and worse explanations?

Abduction, at least in the context of science, relies on current accepted understanding, and the degree of consistency with that as a measure of plausibility.

Think about plate tectonics, for example. Someone could have come up with a rival hypothesis that it was the gravitational effects of the Sun and Moon causing the formation of mountains and the creation of separate continents. Or they could have speculated that it was the will of God. Would there be any plausibility in those ideas? Don't you think abductive conjectures need to be testable, falsifiable or at least supported by mathematics?

I take explanations to answer question of "why" — javra

This was a side-kick at Aristotle's causes. Perhaps for Aristotle "fire is hot" is a description, but "fire is hot because heat is its essential nature" is an explanation. The explanation gives the cause. Elsewhere I've argued against causes, for various reasons.

Here, Aristotle hasn't noticed that "fire is hot because heat is its essential nature" says no more than that fire is hot because fire is hot.

So I'm raising the question - can we distinguish between a description and an explanation? My suspicion is that explanations are descriptions in a border context. Explanations might appear to invoking metaphysical causes, but I suspect this is an illusion.

Well, why not aim for the best explanation one can think of? — Janus

Go right ahead. Just don't conclude that such an explanation is true, which is what is needed if we are to overcome Hume's objection.

I meant to respond to your question about whether abduction resolves Hume's problem of induction. I don't see how it has any bearing on it.

As I understand it Hume's point was that inductive conclusions are not logically necessary, that is that induction is not deduction.

As you say "don't conclude that such an explanation is true". I agree with that...scientific theories in general and the abductive hypotheses that may lead to them cannot be demonstrated to be true. They are held as perennially provisional.

Leaving aside why there must be such an explanation, a careful look will show that "abduction" doesn't provide such an explanation. "Inference to best explanation" is utterly hollow, until one sets out what a best explanation is. — Banno

This is right, as I was trying to point out to @Relativist elsewhere.

Laws are descriptions, not explanations. — Banno

Does it explain why? Or does it just detail the description of the motion? — Banno

I'm not sure you have a very clear notion of 'explanation'.

• Why did it fall?
• Because of gravity.

This is certainly an explanation. It could mean, "Because of the law of gravity by which all such things fall," or, "Because the Earth is exerting a force on the object," or any other number of things, but each of them is explanatory.

What makes gravity a better account is F=Gm₁m₂/r². — Banno

This is to say that, "There is a force being exerted on the object, that force is captured by this equation, and that force will continue to operate into the future."

Now my point would be that it doesn't matter. What we get is a brilliant and useful way of working out what will happen - description or explanation, be damned. — Banno

You have nothing at all if you don't have an explanation. One cannot describe the future without knowledge of how things will work in the future, and one cannot have such knowledge in the absence of explanations. Your "usefulness" is entirely dependent on this ability to predict the future, and your idea that this is done sans explanation is altogether incorrect.

If one describes what has happened in the past but posits no explanation or principle by which the past and the future are connected, then they will be wholly barred from "brilliant and useful ways of working out what will happen."

It is not irrational to believe in conspiracies. — Banno

False equivalence.

A conspiracy is any covert plan involving two or people. One could have a theory that a conspiracy has occurred, but the term "conspiracy theory" has come to have a special meaning. It refers to irrationally jumping to the conclusion that there is some absurdly widespread conspiracy behind some perceived issue. Examples:
-9/11 Conspiracy theories
-Pizzagate
Faked moon landing
Big Pharma Conspiracies
UFO Conspiracy Theories

In all cases, they are based on biased speculation, cherry picking of facts, ignoring or rationalizing discofirming evidence - i.e. bad epistemology.

Leaving aside why there must be such an explanation, a careful look will show that "abduction" doesn't provide such an explanation. "Inference to best explanation" is utterly hollow, until one sets out what a best explanation is.
— Banno

This is right, as I was trying to point out to Relativist elsewhere. — Leontiskos

I never said that abduction PROVIDES explanations. I said it entails process for SELECTING an explanation.

And I DID outline some criteria:

Abduction entails drawing a non-necessary inference from a set of data (intended to be all available, relevant data), that consists of an explanatory hypothesis for that data - one that is deemed to explain the data better* than alternatives.

The inference is defeasible- it can be falsified by new, relevant data (previously overlooked or newly discovered) that is inconsistent with the hypothesis. Alternatively, it can be supplanted by a new hypothesis that demonstrably provides a superior* explanation.
________________
*[see next quote ]
________________ — Relativist

Methodology is indeed key. Some basics: explanatory scope and power, parsimony, more plausible than alternatives (consistent with more facts that are commonly accepted), fewer ad hoc assumptions (ad hoc suppositions are assumptions that are not entailed by the data and other commonly accepted facts). Biases entail ad hoc assumptions. It also entails consideration of other hypotheses.

Ideally, an abductive conclusion ought to be only as specific as the information warrants, otherwise it will include ad hoc assumptions.

Finally, the level of certainty ought to tied to the strength of the case. For example, consider a jury verdict based on a preponderance of evidence vs one based on "beyond reasonable doubt". A chosen "best" explanation may still be (arguably) unlikely. There's always the risk of choosing "the best of a bad lot"- which would tend to be the case when the data is sparse.

It's useful to solicit and receive feedback from others with divergent views. This can help identify overlooked, relevant facts, challenge assumptions that are ad hoc or reflect bias, and identify alternative hypotheses for comparing. — Relativist

I also pointed out that the errors made by conspiracy theorists is that they are not properly applying such principles.

The criticisms directed at me all pertain to the advance of science- that it isn't made through abduction. This is irrelevant to my general points - that it is reasonable to apply IBE in our epistemic judgements, and that we all do this every day - most often, in a superficial way. When we challenge each others' opinions in this forum, we often dig deeper to justify our claims: we're defending our beliefs on the basis of the factors that lead to our (abductive) judgement.

Science doesn't progress solely via abduction, but it certainly could not progress at all, or even get off the ground, without it. — Janus

Agreed.

Prompted by claims made in this thread, I have begun reading Paul Feyerabend's "Against Method". His focus is on the advance of science through creative processes that are at odds with abduction. For example, scientific breakthroughs often depend on thinking outside the box and dropping theory-laden assumptions. He makes good points about this, but he's not making arguments against the reasonableness of abduction as an epistemological methodology for comparing hypotheses.

but the term "conspiracy theory" has come to have a special meaning. It refers to irrationally jumping to the conclusion that there is some absurdly widespread conspiracy behind some perceived issue. — Relativist

I would say that "conspiracy theory" is a fairly empty term in this pejorative sense. If it refers to "irrational jumping to a conclusion," then of course conspiracy theories are irrational. This is just a tautology. Yet the substantive question is always whether some theory does or does not jump to a conclusion; or whether some argument is or is not irrational. Labels like "conspiracy theory" or "irrational" always commit the fallacy of begging the question whenever there is a substantive issue being debated. Better to skip them altogether and give an argument for why something is supposed to be irrational.

I would say that "conspiracy theory" is a fairly empty term in this pejorative sense. — Leontiskos

I don't think so. Any phenomenon admits to multiple explanations, the vast majority of which are profoundly unlikely. A conspiracy theory is a rococo sort of explanation, containing multiple agents and moving parts that must act in perfect concert for it to be true. Prima facie there is nothing that says a conspiracy theory must be false. However due to their complexity there are almost always multiple serious flaws in such theories.

For a conspiracy theory to be a conspiracy theory, there must be a conspiracy theorist who espouses it. The two come as a package. It is well noted that it's impossible to disabuse a conspiracy theorist of their theory. Because, It is always possible to paper over any flaw with more complexity. This is recursively endless. The same phenomenon is seen in science. No theory can be disproven outright. Rather, for the false theory to fit the data, more and more complexity has to be piled onto it, until it collapsed under its own weight, and the scientific community thoroughly dismisses it. But, there can always be cranks who will cling to it no matter what, and work diligently sustaining there theory by patching over the flaws with more and more complexity. Flat earth is a perfect example of this.

This is the irrationality of conspiracy theories. It is the selection of a theory not because it is best, but because it meets the needs of the conspiracist. To the conspiracy theorist, the fundamental axiom is that their theory is correct. Given this starting point, any apparent contradiction can be worked around, given enough time and cleverness. This process is obviously not rational, it does not favor outcomes where the result is true. Even if, every now and then, they might indeed be true.

Let's look at an example. The government is hiding evidence of alien landings. This asserts the existence of some thing - alien landings - but nothing is said here about where or when. However the government responds, it is open to the believer to maintain their position. If they open area 51 to inspection, the theorist can say that the evidence has been moved elsewhere. If they deny that there is any evidence, that reinforces the idea of a conspiracy.

Where is abduction here? — Banno

The hypothesis of alien landings is not an inference to the best explanation of all available facts. It could be a reasonable initial reaction to some report, but further analysis ought to expose problems with the theory. Are alternative explanations sought? Has the feasibility of long-distance space travel been considered? Should technologically intelligent life be deemed sufficiently common in our sector of the galaxy to consider their presence plausible?

What about the conspiracy itself? How many individuals would have to be involved? Is it plausible that all of them would keep the secret?

Implausibilities and disconfirming facts are ignored and the merely possible is treated as plausible. The repeated rationalizations implies the conspiracy theorist is not reconsidering the hypothesis as more information comes to light.

There's invariably a demand that naysayers "prove them wrong"- which is an absurd standard - since they are also not provably right. It's possible that hundreds of people are behaving perfectly at keeping the secret, and taking the secret to their graves. It's possible Einstein is wrong about speed of light limitations on travel. But the many implausibilities should have bearing on ones's judgement.

Almost nothing in life is provably true, but we can still weigh facts and evidence - and strive to do this as reasonably as possible- that is all abduction is. It is about justifying ones beliefs. Believing one proposition to be true, solely on the basis that is is possible does not entail a rational justification, and it only gets more irrational when the basis consists of a conjunction of many propositions that are mere possibilities.

The point is that there are common patterns that conspiracy theories follow that reflect poor reasoning. Yes, they can individually be debunked, but common reasoning errors can also be identified. I mentioned a few in the post you responded to.

Of course scientists are creative. Calling there creativity "abduction" and locking it down to Peirce's simplistic schema is denigrating that creativity. Positing abduction as a response to Hume's scepticism is piling obfuscation on top of misunderstanding. — Banno

I didn't do that. I brought up creativity to distinguish it from abduction.

I'm reading "Against Method", and so far - it's confirming what I thought. He is NOT denigrating abduction; he's just saying it is not a process that is appropriate for advancing science- for a variety of very good reasons. New theory could never emerge if it were constrained to the old theoretical framework. It's necessary to think outside the box.

But this has no bearing on the reasonableness of utilizing abduction to make epistemic judgements to justify our beliefs in everyday life. It is absurd to give equal credence to every possibility on the sole basis of logical possibility- stronger epistemic support is needed. Abduction can provide that.

I'm reading "Against Method" — Relativist

Good. Feyerabend is mistaken, but in interesting ways. Perhaps the most important aspect of his writing is his drawing attention to how the normatively inherent in scientific work is not algorithmic; the "best" hypothesis is not found using a fixed procedure; it’s lived and worked out within a community.

Perhaps we might continue when your finished.

A philosopher worthy of attention in regard to conspiracy theories is Melina Tsapos.

Maybe start with Who is a Conspiracy Theorist?, in which she sets out some of the conceptual problems involved. It includes a video abstract.

Tsapos points out that on the common definition, we are all conspiracy theorists; yet few self identify as such (the problem of self identification). Also, if the class of conspiracy theorists includes almost everyone, then that class becomes useless as an analytic tool (the problem of theoretical fruitfulness). The term is either used merely rhetorically, in which case it is an example of "othering"; or it "collapse into already well-established concepts within cognitive psychology, thus failing the differentiation test for being a valuable addition to our conceptual toolbox."

A simplistic account of conspiracy theories as failing to apply abduction "correctly" begs for an explanation of what a "correct" application of abduction is; which remains problematic.

Isn't describing things in terms of symmetry still describing them? — Banno

Bigger and bigger descriptions. Still descriptions. Awesome descriptions. — Banno

I'll accept that, if you will accept that the explanation is no more than a more usable description. — Banno

You can see the pattern here. When confronted by what seems like a dichotomy - description versus explanation - you feel a need to reduce it rather than understand its systems logic. You want to collapse a pincer movement to the simplicity of a monism. One thing has to be made the ground and the other shown to be merely derivative of that.

But dichotomies have a holistic logic. They identify complementary limits. They speak to the unity of opposites. Two things cut against each other.

So if we must divide things as descriptions vs explanations, I would point how they make sense as the complementary limits on inquiry and you would find every way to insist that only one could be the true ground.

And that is what I was pointing out in reminding that Peircean reasoning secures itself by going strongly in two complementary directions. Towards first deducing the logical consequences of some abductive leap towards an explanation, and then doing the other thing of seeking inductive confirmation of those worked-out consequences. So framing a theory – a model of the causes – and then doing the experiment. Generating predictions of observables. Measurements that are publicly understood within some communuity of inquiry as suitable evidence of a claim.

So far as the causation vs correlation debate goes, it should be plain that this Peircean method both accepts the Humean limits on knowledge and also challenges them. The whole business is proudly sociological. Truth arises within a community of inquiry.

Even what could count for correlations is subjective in the sense the rules for measuring need that common agreement. The principle of fallibilism arises quite naturally as hypotheses only get inductive level confirmation. We can jump in with our belief to get the ball rolling, but we bear in mind that we are only constraining our scope to doubt it. Reasonable levels of belief are all we can hope for in the end.

But then on the other hand there is the working out of the deductive consequences of some line of thought. Science is not just mere descriptions of the world when it has moved on to the structuralism of framing mathematical strength theories.

So you started bringing up the laws of nature. And in physics, these are solidly grounded on the mathematics of symmetry. Noether is just one example. The whole of relativity and quantum theory are rooted in explorations of symmetry principles and how they must shape the world in ways which have no other alternative. It is the same as when Plato talked about the five Platonic solids. Their existence are not a sociological fact or a descriptive fact. There just is no damn choice about it under the constraints of symmetry. We can be of sure of that as we can be of anything.

Which is to say, still not absolutely sure. Just as we can't be absolutely sure that when we read numbers off dials, well maybe we were a bit squiffy at the time. But as a community of inquiry, physics seems to know what it is doing. It has a ground both for its causal speculations and its correlational practices. It goes in both these directions strongly and so sets up the best available pincer movement with which to pin down a pragmatic description of physical reality.

So all the debate about the sociology of science is one thing. Of course science is sociological.

But what is going wrong here is your thesis that "everything is description, so nothing can be explanation". That sounds logical to the reductionist. But a holist can see why that is a big fail.

When you look at science, you find that it drives towards the two complementary limits of inquiry. Causal accounts and observational confirmation. Two things that must be connected by the third thing of their feedback impact on each other. Each direction must directly inform the other. Explanation must inform our descriptions and description inform our explanations.

So we can claim to know about causality once we have models framed at the level of mathematical structure. Possibility is itself limited by symmetry. And by producing the correlative evidence, we likewise limit the possibilities from the other angle of the inductive confirmation. Between the two, we can arrive at beliefs that are far from merely sociological.

A conspiracy theory is a rococo sort of explanation, containing multiple agents and moving parts that must act in perfect concert for it to be true. Prima facie there is nothing that says a conspiracy theory must be false. However due to their complexity there are almost always multiple serious flaws in such theories. — hypericin

That's a fair point, but my difficulty is that the word is almost always being used pejoratively and not substantively. For example, if we actually used the word the way you describe then we would say that according to a conspiracy theory a solar eclipse will occur on February 17th. That's simply not how the word is used.

For a conspiracy theory to be a conspiracy theory, there must be a conspiracy theorist who espouses it. The two come as a package. It is well noted that it's impossible to disabuse a conspiracy theorist of their theory. Because, It is always possible to paper over any flaw with more complexity. This is recursively endless. — hypericin

...And now we're back to the pejorative usage. If you are committed to your definition where a conspiracy theory is an explanation "containing multiple agents and moving parts that must act in perfect concert," then there is no reason to believe that "it is impossible to disabuse a conspiracy theorist of their theory." You are equivocating between a substantive and a pejorative definition.

If someone says that a solar eclipse will occur on February 17th, then on your definition they are a conspiracy theorist. It will also be perfectly easy to disabuse them of their theory, especially if their prediction turns out to be mistaken. You are involved in a kind of selection bias where you take everything that is a conspiracy theory by your substantive definition, and then exclude from that set everything that does not meet the implicit pejorative definition.

This is the irrationality of conspiracy theories. It is the selection of a theory not because it is best, but because it meets the needs of the conspiracist. To the conspiracy theorist, the fundamental axiom is that their theory is correct. Given this starting point, any apparent contradiction can be worked around, given enough time and cleverness. — hypericin

This is another example of the pejorative equivocation.

This process is obviously not rational, — hypericin

But it is. It is obviously irrational to select a theory based on one's personal psychological needs, to begin with the axiom that one must be correct, etc.

You've put up a few posts, to which I have not replied. That's becasue they appear to be addressing something very different to what I have actually said. That is what happens when everything must be shoehorned into Peirce's variant of Hegelian dialectic.

You want that symmetry be explanatory because it’s a necessary structure. The question remains as to whether that structure is in the world or in the description. Is symmetry foundational to the world, or foundational to our descriptions? Is it that the world just gets on with whatever it is doing, while we construct descriptions of symmetry?

But from Davidson, we might see that this very juxtaposition is fraught with presumption. I see you as working inside a conceptual scheme that is itself a false construction. The whole picture you’re working with — of structure vs correlation, complementary limits, systems logic — is already suspect, or atl least already a construct.

We continue to talk past each other. There may be room for some form of reconciliation, since both Pierce and Davidson make use of holism. For Pierce there is a deep division between dialectic opposites that is healed by holism. For Davidson, that deep division is not there in the beginning - it's holism all the way down.

You wish for metaphysical explanations; but such explanations are inseparable from myth, not explanations so much as further descriptions and just-so stories. Your reading the necessary structure of the world into symmetry, into your complementary extremes, is not explanatory so much as more description. Meaning is not going to be found in the structure of the world, but is constructed by what we do with our language inside that world.

But there's a difference in our methodological dispositions that may be irreconcilable. I have an allergy to explanations of everything. I think complete explanations are completely wrong. So I'll leave you to your mythologising, and muddle along.

The hypothesis of alien landings is not an inference to the best explanation of all available facts. — Relativist

What seems to be missing from this discussion is that life can be full of accidents. So abduction has to be the kind inference that is filtering the events of the world in that light. Not all facts might be salient in a causal sense although accidental facts can occasion equal surprise.

Abduction thus would speak to this tricky thing of making smart judgements. What you are looking for are the clues to a causal explanation. Some logic that lies behind a pattern of events. The thing that brains are indeed evolved to do. And so why abduction seems such a psychological process and not really one that can be described as a formal method. It just how we can get started on the public and formal part, which is the deduction of consequences and inductive confirmation of the hypothesis we chose to throw out there in public.

So what we are inferring is that we can see through a haze of accidental particulars to the simple generality of some grounding causal constraint. Not every fact that seems surprising need also be salient. The salient facts give themselves away by starting to assemble into some kind of constraining pattern. The kind of general process that could have generated these particular facts in a non-accidental way.

Our brains are thankfully just rather good at such pattern processing. They are evolved to separate signal from noise.

To talk about abduction is just to highlight the fact that we do start out with some natural ability to find reasons in nature. We can perceive its structure. We can generalise its order.

And then we can get on with the business of constructing theories and running the tests. The epistemic technology that we socially construct to create that Peircean community of pragmatic inquiry.

The question remains as to whether that structure is in the world or in the description. — Banno

What difference does it make to instead say the question remains as to whether that structure is in the world or in the explanation?

But there's a difference in our methodological dispositions that may be irreconcilable. ... I think complete explanations are completely wrong. — Banno

Again, your choice of terminology bakes in your conclusions.

Would my holism be concerned with completeness or the all-encompassing? Do I really yearn to list every detail. Make a complete description. Or do I instead want the ground of a most general explanation – in terms of constraining whatever pragmatic task is at hand. Don't I say I seek the dichotomy as that which is the logically encompassing – mutually exclusive AND jointly exhaustive?

So make your excuses and go. All you have proved to your own satisfaction is something I never really said. Not even close. :up:

Our brains are thankfully just rather good at such pattern processing. They are evolved to separate signal from noise. — apokrisis

Yes, pattern recognition is our strength, but it can also lead us astray at times. Just because we see the shape of a puppy in the clouds, doesn't imply there's anything truly dog-like up there. Just because we see a pattern of dice throws, doesn't imply the next throws are predictable. Just because some particular alignment of planets coincided with the nature of some type of event , doesn't imply there's truly a cause-effect relationship.

On the other hand, I suspect that great insights also come from pattern recognition. Einstein didn't work out general relativity by starting with a set of equations and see where they'd lead. He had a hunch, an insight that led him to mathematically connect the dots.

The formulator of, what becomes, a conspiracy theory - may see a pattern. In itself, that's perfectly fine. But errors creep in when he starts to apply confirmation bias, and fails to challenge some of his own assumptions. They stop trying to solve a problem, and begin just rationalizing their hunch. The problem accelerates when other like-minded people embrace it, and contribute to the rationalization, and praise each others' brilliance. The process is quite different from past, brilliant insights that have proved so fruitful. It's a corruption.

Not even close. — apokrisis

Yep. On this we agree.

His focus is on the advance of science through creative processes that are at odds with abduction. For example, scientific breakthroughs often depend on thinking outside the box and dropping theory-laden assumptions. — Relativist

We may have different notions of abduction. My conception of abduction certainly doesn't preclude novel thinking or "thinking outside the box".

I often hear it said that science doesn't progress through cumulative knowledge and understanding, but through paradigm shifts. I don't think it's entirely one or the other and I don't think the 'paradigm shift' paradigm is an accurate picture except at the broadest scales. How many historical scientific paradigm shifts can you think of ?

I think complete explanations are completely wrong. — Banno

Again, your choice of terminology bakes in your conclusions.

Would my holism be concerned with completeness or the all-encompassing?... — apokrisis

Yep. Banno began by arguing against explanation in favor of description, and has now fallen back to a different position, namely by opposing "complete" explanations. He has fallen back from arguing against a substantive position ("explanations are important to science," or something of the like), to arguing against the bogeyman of a "complete" explanation. Motte and bailey.

We may have different notions of abduction. My conception of abduction certainly doesn't preclude novel thinking or "thinking outside the box". — Janus

In the relevant cases, the "outside the box" means going in directions that are contradicted by current theory. In terms of abduction, the hypothesis is falsified before it's investigated. Even if this can be rationalized to abduction, the broader point is that they aren't being guided at all by abduction - but by something on the spectrum of idiotic wild-guess to brilliant insight.

But I still don't think this is the whole picture. There's still the matter of gaining broad acceptance. Einstein thought outside the box with his insight, but broad acceptance still depended on demonstrating how his theory was "better" than alternatives.

I often hear it said that science doesn't progress through cumulative knowledge and understanding, but through paradigm shifts. I don't think it's entirely one or the other and I don't think the 'paradigm shift' paradigm is an accurate picture except at the broadest scales. How many historical scientific paradigm shifts can you think of ? — Janus

Kuhn came up with the "paradigm shift" view, and he discussed some historical examples that made sense to me when I read his book 40+ years ago. Examples I recall are Newtonian Gravity to General Relativity, and geo-centrism to helio-centrism. But I think you're right that these are rare.

Yes, pattern recognition is our strength, but it can also lead us astray at times. Just because we see the shape of a puppy in the clouds, doesn't imply there's anything truly dog-like up there. — Relativist

But patterns have to be enduring to mislead us for longer than a few moments. A dog is hard to mistake for anything else as we can recognise it from all sorts of angles in all sorts of contexts.

Which again says something useful about the difference between an explanation and a description.

Einstein didn't work out general relativity by starting with a set of equations and see where they'd lead. He had a hunch, an insight that led him to mathematically connect the dots. — Relativist

Famously his happiest thought on gravity was imagining the weightlessness a man would feel falling of a roof. This led to the equivalence principle - the symmetry between gravity and acceleration. But of course Galileo had already put such a thought half in mind with his observation that a uniformly moving body feels no acceleration. And Einstein had been searching hard to include gravity into special relativity.

So hunches arise only in suitably constrained contexts. We suddenly see things from the right angle, having tried many other angles.

The formulator of, what becomes, a conspiracy theory - may see a pattern. In itself, that's perfectly fine. But errors creep in when he starts to apply confirmation bias, and fails to challenge some of his own assumptions. They stop trying to solve a problem, and begin just rationalizing their hunch. The problem accelerates when other like-minded people embrace it, and contribute to the rationalization, and praise each others' brilliance. The process is quite different from past, brilliant insights that have proved so fruitful. It's a corruption. — Relativist

I’m watching this happen in real time after Charlie Kirk’s shooting. And the process is not so simple.

The problem is that we do live in a world where everyone is telling self-interested stories. Governments - even when their intentions are good - will edit the facts to make them palatable for public consumption. Any citizen who starts to dig into the facts as they are presented will always seem to find more and more that does not fit the narrative.

He has fallen back from arguing against a substantive position ("explanations are important to science," or something of the like), to arguing against the bogeyman of a "complete" explanation. — Leontiskos

Long ago I noted that this was the “wombat defence”. Retreat into your burrow and turn your arse to the world. Block out all intrusive thoughts,

But AI now tells me that I was too hasty. Or at least why one wouldn’t want to poke their head into his burrow in a hurry. :grin:

Wombats defend themselves by retreating into their burrows and using their tough, heavily reinforced rumps to block the entrance and crush an attacker's head against the tunnel's roof. Their "butt of steel" provides a powerful defense, allowing them to slam a predator with deadly force, making them dangerous even to much larger animals

- :lol:

I often hear it said that science doesn't progress through cumulative knowledge and understanding, but through paradigm shifts. I don't think it's entirely one or the other and I don't think the 'paradigm shift' paradigm is an accurate picture except at the broadest scales. — Janus

Biologists were equally obsessed over the debate whether evolutionary change was gradual or punctuated. And the best answer is that intermittently is what you get quite randomly. Nothing much happening then all the buses arriving at once.

So paradigm shifts are another such fake controversy. If progress or growth is happening, it is going to be happening freely over all its scales.

Paradigm shifts large and small, swift and slow, will be resulting from a collective habit of inquiry. And intermittency is in fact a statistical measure of this being the case. Paradigm shifts ought to be attracted to a powerlaw distribution if the underlying paradigm shifting process is freely doing its job.

Even apparent patternlessness is a fundamental pattern of nature that maths explains - rather than merely describes. Whatever wombats might otherwise believe.

We may have different notions of abduction. — Janus

That's part of the problem... the idea is equivocal.

Any way, back to the insults and misrepresentations from our friends.