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The Value of Elaborating New Observational Descriptions of the World
As science seeks to have more coherence through explanatory theories it also develops an ever increasing body of repeatable and descriptive observations.
These descriptions can by themselves be technologically valuable without recourse to elaborate explanations or mathematical formulations. The international genome sequencing projects on humans and other organisms are perhaps some of the best examples. These very repetitive descriptive exercises are currently predicted to radically change the practice of human and veterinary medicine though their technological applications. New and more elaborate observations of the world achieved through a reductionist approach can therefore be highly valuable in themselves. Descriptions can of course be spurious. The value of theory in that context can be to tie useful observations together into a meaningful whole, while leaving aside the unnecessary or questioning the apparently spurious.
If any domain of human thinking cannot be descriptively elaborated with new observations of the world and then be coherently rationalised by economically expressed theories we should question its value.
On the Philosophy of Belief
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Scotland, 12th October 2007 and thereafter
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