Incommensurable Football

My new approach to the blog (short, frequent posts) didn't last long. So after a four month hiatus from the blog (spent largely trying, successfully I hope, to figure out how to teach non-science majors about the Copernican Revolution) here another really long entry.....

Now that I've re-read Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and read his The Essential Tension (not to mention his The Copernican Revolution) I still find myself troubled by his idea of incommensurability. I agree with Kuhn's commitment to evaluating scientific theories from the standpoint of those who held them. We must accept that our criteria for judging theories change over time and therefore there will be cases in which one theory is judged superior using a certain set of criteria (adopted by one group of scientists) while another theory is judged superior using a different set of criteria (by a different group of scientists). There is no doubt that such cases have arisen in the history of science. I'm sure it is the case that some of these disagreements were resolved through social or psychological, rather than scientific, means. But I remain convinced that these dilemmas COULD have been resolved by scientific means, eventually, at least in almost all cases. And I've been inspired in my thinking on this topic by, of all things, college football. Bear with me for a moment as I talk football. I'll return to the philosophy of science in a bit, but I've got to set the stage first.

A earned my PhD in physics from the University of Texas at Austin and am therefore a fan of the Longhorns. It follows from this that I cannot stand the Oklahoma Sooners. These two teams, along with Texas Tech (about whom I have no strong feelings), are currently embroiled in a controversy over who should be declared the champion of the Big XII South Division. All three teams have identical 11-1 records (7-1 in the conference). Texas beat OU, Texas Tech beat Texas, and OU beat Tech. The conventional criteria (conference record, overall record, head-to-head results) cannot produce a unique winner for the division. This is, I feel, rather like two (or three?) scientific theories that fit equally well the evidence that is accepted by proponents of both theories. Perhaps there is a ``crucial experiment'' in favor of one theory, but there is also a ``crucial experiment'' in favor of the other theory (I view the crucial experiment as being like the head-to-head matchup - although in football one can always question whether or not the "best team always wins" and the same is likely true of science). The rules of the Big XII provide a solution to this football dilemma, but the solution is a very Kuhnian one: the winner of the division is determined by which team has the highest BCS ranking. Note that the BCS ranking is determined by computer polls (constructed by "experts" who use various statistical and numerical criteria to rank teams against each other) as well as by human votes. In other words, this dilemma is settled through social means. Just like, according to Kuhn, disputes between scientific theories.

As it turns out the 'Horns (along with the Red Raiders) got the short straw and the hated OU Sooners have been declared division champs. In all honesty, they deserve it as much as the Longhorns do (though perhaps not any more). There is a genuine ambiguity here. It seems as though the only possible solution is the social one. Over the last several days I've read innumerable attempts to apply logic to the situation, logic which inevitably shows that the team favored by the logician should be chosen as the division champ. Sounds a lot like debates over phlogiston or the motion of the Earth! The truth is that the usual standards simply fail to supply a clear answer in this case. It's painful for us Longhorn fans, but the truth is that we can't prove that it SHOULDN'T be OU in the title game - except by appealing to the innate superiority of Texas over OU that we all feel deep down in our bones. But I'm sure OU fans feel the same way about their team (assuming OU fans have normal human feelings...).

So far my story seems to be heading in a pessimistic direction. If we can't even figure out which of two football teams is better, how can we hope to do the same for competing scientific theories? But I am convinced that there is a way out. The solution for the football controversy could be easy: just set up a round-robin tournament among these three teams and keep it going until a clear champion emerges. This solution may be impractical but if we REALLY wanted to be sure we could do it. Even then, though, there is a problem. Football teams are transient things. Players get hurt (indeed, Tech star Michael Crabtree likely couldn't play in my proposed tournament). If things go on long enough, some of the players will graduate (yes, some of them DO graduate) and will no longer be eligible to play. So you really aren't always comparing the same three teams.

This is where science has the advantage on football: scientific theories may be transient, but they don't NEED to be. Yes, theories come and go, but if we can hold off what I'm calling the "social solution" we can keep a theory in play as long as needed. We can keep finding more head-to-head match-ups, or at least get a better handle on the breadth of problems that can be solved by one theory versus the other (a bit like the "strength of schedule" in the football computer polls). Ambiguities can arise, as they did in the Big XII South this year, but over time those ambiguities can be sorted out if we care to do so. Sorting out the ambiguities and avoiding incommensurability requires, I think, three things: time, effort, and SOME shared criteria for evaluating theories. The proponents of different theories need not share ALL of their criteria, but there must be some overlap. In particular, both groups must have some commitment to empirical validation of their theories. Yes, seemingly contradictory empirical results can always be explained away by tweaking some auxiliary information, etc. So no one piece of empirical evidence will decide the victor (just as the Texas-OU game did not decide the Big XII South Champion). But with sufficient time and effort enough empirical evidence can be compiled to push us to one of three situations: one theory is clearly better than the other at matching the empirical data, both theories match the empirical data equally well but one theory has been forced to become more complicated to match the data, or the two theories turn out to really be the same theory.

Of course my argument doesn't prove anything, but it feels right to me. I am utterly convinced that even with an additional 300+ years of development impetus theory could not compete with Newtonian physics in the efficiency and accuracy with which it predicts the motion of macroscopic objects. I believe that if I could travel back in time armed with my knowledge of Newtonian physics (and a good English-Latin dictionary?) I could convince medieval scholars like Buridan and Oresme to abandon impetus and embrace Newton's ideas. I feel certain of this. But then, I feel certain that Texas is better than OU. Feeling certain counts for little in the philosophy of science, just as in college football.