Part 2: Method and Theory in Archaeological Science

Behold! I have finally returned to my Method and Theory in Archaeological Science series. Though I did not want this delay between posts, I had no choice but to “job hunt” and mercilessly modify my blog design before I returned to them. You know how that goes. Thanks for your patience.

Since I began this a month ago, I’d better review. My goal is to discuss the concepts from this Philosophy of Science course that are germane to all science. Dr. Method and Theory insists that good concepts are the key to doing good science, and I agree. Plus, good concepts in science double the hilarious fun to be had. It’s true. Cross my heart.

In Part I of this series, I noted the importance of distinguishing formal scientific theory from explanatory scientific theory. I said that formal theory deals with nouns and explanatory theory deals with verbs. Then I deliberately moved on to explain why everything is way more subjective than we tend to think it is. When Karl Popper said, “All observations are theory-laden”, he was right.

(Don’t worry. “Method and Theory in Archaeological Science” is not an ode to Karl Popper. Popper was wrong about a lot of other things. Don’t let the quote distract you.)

Next, I gave you a definition of common sense, the human faculty that has helped us survive over the course of our evolution but gets in the way when we’re not escaping tigers and ravaging chicken with our teeth and bare hands and we want to practice the civilized art of science. HAHAHAHA! Okay. I mean, common sense, as previously defined, gets in the way when we want to do science. However, no one can divest herself of common sense.
Read more. . .

Incidentally, this is what Popper really meant when he said, “All observations are theory-laden”. He used the word theory, which I will define presently, because he didn’t know any better. He really meant everyone’s observations are cryptically biased by whatever common sense they happen to possess. He only didn’t say it that way because he tended to screw up like that. I would have never made this kind of mistake.

Anyway, that’s where I ended Part I. Onwards!

You’ve probably noticed that I’ve used “measurements” and “descriptions” interchangeably in Part I. I was trying to convey the idea that you can think of both qualitative and quantitative assessments as “descriptions” as well as “measurements”. (Fail! I know.) Again, this is important because scientists must understand that even though the physical world exists apart from their perspectives, they cannot observe it that way. Their challenge is to get better and better at making their biases explicit, thereby producing data that works under an empirical standard.

Of the systems of knowledge available to people, science is the only one that does not allow its practitioners to generate units of measurement from common sense.
Scientific units of measurement are always derived from theory.

Theory: a system of classes and laws that provides the basis for the explanation of phenomena.

Class: an intensionally defined unit of meaning.

Intensional definition: the necessary and sufficient conditions for membership rendered as a set of distinctive features which an object or event must display to be a member. You must spell “intensional” as it appears here. Don’t let Microsoft Word get you down.

Note that classes are not the same as groups. By these definitions, an example of a class is “atoms”, while an example of a group is “dogs”.

Scientific laws: logically coherent relationships between classes.

Empiricist, philosophical, religious and mystic explanations of the world are common-sensical. Scientific explanations of the world are theoretical. This is the fundamental reason why people can only build airplanes and make vaccines with scientific knowledge. It’s not that the other systems of knowledge lack value. In fact, even though the other systems of knowledge compete with science to explain the world, they often inspire strategies and creativity crucial to the development of science. (NO WONDER IT’S SO DARN INTERESTING JUST TO BE ALIVE!11!!!!ELEVENTY!!!111!!) However, they ultimately can’t help you understand stuff completely outside of your head.

At this juncture, I anticipate several protests from my readers:

“Wait a minute, Juniper. You just lumped philosophy with empiricism, religion and mysticism. But didn’t you say Method and Theory was a Philosophy of Science class?” Yes. All I meant by that, however, is that all science begins with ontology. Most of us have been given the impression that science is just a bunch of measurements of stuff, and the units by which scientists measure are totally objective and were magically conjured by a bunch of extra special old white dudes. We aren’t usually taught that science is a worldview designed to increase the power of our explanations of the world.

Incidentally, the idea that science is just a bunch of measurements is what Dr. Method and Theory calls systematic empiricism. Coriolis, if you’ve had the patience to read this far, this is what I meant by “empiricism” in this post. I didn’t mean that empiricism has no place in science. Without empiricism, we know, scientists wouldn’t be able to falsify their hypotheses, and “scientific explanations” would cease to have the lion’s share of explanatory power.

“Wait a minute, Juniper. If English is common-sensical, what good are all these definitions you keep giving us anyway?” On one hand, they aren’t good outside of this discussion. I was just playfully harshing on good Professor Popper. In class, Dr. Method and Theory deliberately provided a glossary to make key terms in his class monosemic. First, in a class meant to train you to think like a scientist, making key terms monosemic is the next best thing to discussing everything in math, the only language in which all rules are explicit and governed by logic. We can’t (yet) talk to one another in math (about any historical science), but we can work to maximize the precision of our definitions, to ensure that we’re actually talking about the same things. Second, Dr. Method wanted to teach us why monosemy is key in science. Monosemy in physics and chemistry means that every physicist and chemist in the world agrees upon the definitions of their units of measurement. Which, incidentally, have no more than three dimensions.

On the other hand, I apply Dr. Method and Theory’s definitions to my examination of everything. You would not believe what I have been able to comprehend with these tools. I leave it to my readers.

Back to monosemy. Do biologists possess a monosemic definition of “species”? What about “biochemical pathway”? What about archaeologists? Do they possess a monosemic definition of “artifact”? Do anthropologists use a monosemic definition of “culture”? Do psychiatrists use a monosemic definition of “Type 2 bipolar disorder”? What about “clinical depression”? Does DrugMonkey think physiologists have monosemic standardizations of “blood pressure” and “cholesterol levels”?

“But, Juniper, do we care what DrugMonkey thinks?” Shush. Of course we do. Stop being rude. Besides, you’re missing the point. Biology, archaeology, anthropology, psychology and psychiatry are all historical disciplines. They all seek scientific explanations of phenomena that must attend to the dimension of time. Ever wonder why people generally think of physics and chemistry as the “hard sciences”? Because today’s physicists can’t pull definitions of “elementary particles” out of their butts. Physics and chemistry are twice as old as the historical sciences, which, arguably, Darwin jump-started the way Newton and Leibniz jump-started the former; it’s easier to think in three dimensions than four. If you are a historical scientist, remember this the next time a mathematician tells you that a discipline like psychology will never be a “hard science”, and the field is full of women because the material is easier for them to grasp. Too bad the human lifespan isn’t three youthful centuries long.

“Wait a minute! This sounds weird. For example, ‘artifact’ isn’t, like, the same thing as ‘element’. When you call something an artifact, you’re just describing an old object.” Yeah. Descriptions are measurements. “Artifact” is a common-sensical archaeological measurement. You can tell pretty stories with common-sensical measurements, but you can’t produce scientific explanations with them.

“Fine, Juniper. So how do we get monosemic units of measurement?” Formal theory. You can think of the monosemic units of measurement as the “nouns” to which Dr. Method and Theory alluded.

I wanted to end this post with further discussion of the distinction between formal and explanatory theory, as well as an introduction of evolutionary theory as explanatory theory. However, I have realized for some hours now that I took really, really, really crappy notes in Dr. Method and Theory’s class. So this series is more ambitious than I originally thought it was. I probably need Dr. Method’s help. I was a totally annoying archaeology student, but I babysit his family’s cat and dog, and his wife is one of my closest friends, so if I scrupulously try not to waste his time, he might talk to me. Might.

I have a lot of work to do. You all are lucky that I’m such a Super Nerd and I love writing about this stuff. Or possibly cursed. Whatever. So long as I enjoy myself. :)