The end of theory in science?

Abstract

Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) famously said that, “whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” Although his counsel was given in a specific context, it is actually good general advice that Chris Anderson, Editor‐in‐chief of Wired magazine, would do well to heed. On June 23, 2008, Anderson posted an article on Wired's website, “The end of theory: the data deluge makes the scientific method obsolete,” from which it is perfectly clear that he doesn't understand much about either science or the scientific method. Anderson's main point is that the modern era of ‘petabyte’ information and ‘cloud’ computing on the web is bypassing the ‘hypothesize, model, test’ procedure of science because scientific theorizing simply cannot cope with the deluge of data. Here is an excerpt: “Out with every theory of human behavior, from linguistics to sociology. Forget taxonomy, ontology, and psychology. Who knows why people do what they do? The point is they do it, and we can track and measure it with unprecedented fidelity […] the numbers speak for themselves.” Actually, the point may or may not be why people do things as opposed to what they do—it just depends …