Concrete Academic

“That’s an interesting theory, but do you have any proof?” But what’s a theory, and what is proof? Does a lot of proof turn a theory into a fact? Do lots of facts prove a theory? Can you theorize facts into proofs? Before wading into some deeper waters tomorrow, I want to do some ground clearing. We’re still getting over the Bush presidency, and some cobwebs remain. My opening sentence illustrates a popular understanding of theory: in this context it means something like a mere speculation, and stands contra facts. Facts are supposed to be rock solid non-debatables, whereas theories are opinions or suppositions, e.g. “conspiracy theories.” Proof of something is achieved when a sufficient number of facts support the speculation, though the threshold of proof will vary for different people.

At least that’s my take on everyday usage. Thanks to the miracle of language, a fascination of mine since I was first learning English at six years of age, we understand each other just fine. This common usage, though, can let us down when discussions take us into higher levels of critical thinking. Failing to discern that we’re using the hard ’scientific’ or ‘technical’ language instead of the plastic ‘everyday’ language can lead to misunderstanding. Words such as argument and criticism have a negative connotation in everyday-speak because most people don’t want to be criticized or get into arguments, but as we flip that mental switch to higher thinking we realize that they are emotively neutral. They’re just part of the parlance of intellectual engagement.

Let’s take a closer look at this language, starting with facts. Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon in 49 BC/BCE. Fact. I just checked on Wikipedia. But how does the Great Wiki know? Probably out of a standard encyclopedia or a survey of Roman history, but then where did they get if from? Ok, so at some point down the bibliographic chain a classicist actually read Remus Suitonicus Romanus Historicus, and he said so. But that’s not right either, because whatever he said, it was not “49 BC.” Someone had to ‘exegete’ the date based on whatever was written in the text. How was that interpretation carried out? What were the assumptions it was based on? Did it immediately correspond to other information? What is the weakest link in the limiting data? And remember that “crossing the Rubicon” is not a plain statement of an event, but is rich in significance. Did the reader get the significance right? What role does that part have in understanding the whole?

It turns out that facts are not non-debatables, they’re just the bits and pieces of the historical, philosophical, or scientific models we build. In the latter case those are sometimes literal models. You can crank on the cogs of a heliocentric model of the solar system and see why it works better at explaining the retrograde motion of celestial bodies than the geocentric model does. Most of the time, though, models are conceptual or mathematical. Meteorologists program computers with a model—their systematic body of knowledge of how weather systems respond to heat, wind, moisture, and so on—and the computer uses that information to answer their questions (What’s going to happen to these clouds when the sun rises in the morning?). Their forecasting success depends on how well their model corresponds to reality.

Note that it isn’t a right or wrong situation: they may at times, using the same model, make better predictions than other times. Those successes and failures tell them where the model works well, and where it doesn’t. Note, too, that as the scientist reads incoming data, the ‘facts,’ he understands them based on his over-arching understanding of the whole system.That understanding is a theory, a coherent bundle of propositions that attempt to explain something and which, when unfolded, becomes a model that can be applied to interpret data or make predictions.

How do you prove it? Or if there are multiple competing theories, how do you know which one is right? We have to get beyond the popular conception of simply lining up our non-debatables against a measuring stick. Those facts, the data, have to be interpreted against the model. The better theory is the one that best explains the data.

In biblical studies there are multiple theories about the “historical Jesus”—itself a phrase that juxtaposes the Jesus of history with the Jesus of the Gospels—ranging from God Incarnate to Jewish philosopher. The data is the same, more or less. The question is which understanding of Jesus makes the best sense of the evidence. If one hypothesizes that Jesus was a Jewish philosopher who merely encouraged high ethical standards, then the problem becomes explaining the rise of Christian martyrdom. If one hypothesizes that Jesus was God and encouraged his own worship, then the problem becomes explaining the late split of Christianity from Judaism. And, of course, I’m simplifying: there are many more problems and many other approaches (I picked the two extremes, but I believe neither of them). There is no theory, in science or the humanities, that is without its problems, that has no holes to fill, that needs no further thinking or articulation. There is nothing that is completely settled. There is only the illusion of this at a popular level.

Understanding the rules of the road is the only way to get anywhere, to have a sincere and open exchange of ideas. Purposefully or accidentally we can throw up roadblocks. When the creationist says, “Evolution is just a theory,” or the atheist says, “Religion is a about faith, science is about facts,” they’re both playing a language game, and playing it badly. The arguments fail catastrophically, imploding by their own circularity. Words can and should be tools for dialog and persuasion rather than simply clubs for bludgeoning, and it starts with a neutral vocabulary.

I touched on another example a moment ago: the Copernican and Ptolemaic models of what we now know of as the solar system. The most interesting part of the story is that at first the Ptolemaic model, although it had built complication upon complication to make sense of the apparent motion of the planets, actually did the math better than Copernicus’ conceptually superior system. The Ptolemaic model was complex and ingenious, the Copernican simple and profound. A priori, which would you have chosen?