I’d like to push back against the idea that empirical observations are more reliable than theoretical arguments. 1. Did you say this because you have empirical data showing that empirical data is more reliable, or do you believe it should be more reliable on theoretical grounds? 2. Here’s a reductio ad absurdum: Empirically, a terrible pandemic started under Trump’s presidency and 0 pandemics have emerged under the Biden/Harris administration. Thus, relying on empirical observation, we should vote for Harris to avoid another pandemic. 3. Empirical observation, literally, can only tell you the past. I can observe that on Tuesday July 11, at 3:13pm, a bird chirped, but that doesn’t give me any information about whether I will observe a bird chirp tomorrow. So, when we say “empirical observation” here, we really just mean “the theory that the same things will happen next time”, which is just a naive theory. Additional empirical observations have helped us establish more nuanced theories like “inflation is related to the money supply” that would let us assign the cause for inflation to the economic stimulus used to prevent a covid recession, instead of to the sitting president. So, I think that we need empirical observations to build valid theories, but making connections between these observations allows us to leverage that knowledge to gain insight in novel contexts. One of those contexts is that future, so any time you want to talk about the future, you are inherently talking theory.
I do not disagree with anything you wrote in this comment. My statement about empirical evidence was made in the context of policy discussion. When one politician consistently worked to implement some policy (for example, restricting illegal immigration) and another politician worked to sabotage it, the most plausible assumption is that they would stay on the same course during their next term in office. It is also possible that the politicians would radically change course and, in principle, one can make theories trying to predict such changes. However, in practice, people (myself included) are usually very bad at making such predictions.
I’d like to push back against the idea that empirical observations are more reliable than theoretical arguments.
1. Did you say this because you have empirical data showing that empirical data is more reliable, or do you believe it should be more reliable on theoretical grounds?
2. Here’s a reductio ad absurdum: Empirically, a terrible pandemic started under Trump’s presidency and 0 pandemics have emerged under the Biden/Harris administration. Thus, relying on empirical observation, we should vote for Harris to avoid another pandemic.
3. Empirical observation, literally, can only tell you the past. I can observe that on Tuesday July 11, at 3:13pm, a bird chirped, but that doesn’t give me any information about whether I will observe a bird chirp tomorrow. So, when we say “empirical observation” here, we really just mean “the theory that the same things will happen next time”, which is just a naive theory. Additional empirical observations have helped us establish more nuanced theories like “inflation is related to the money supply” that would let us assign the cause for inflation to the economic stimulus used to prevent a covid recession, instead of to the sitting president.
So, I think that we need empirical observations to build valid theories, but making connections between these observations allows us to leverage that knowledge to gain insight in novel contexts. One of those contexts is that future, so any time you want to talk about the future, you are inherently talking theory.
I do not disagree with anything you wrote in this comment. My statement about empirical evidence was made in the context of policy discussion. When one politician consistently worked to implement some policy (for example, restricting illegal immigration) and another politician worked to sabotage it, the most plausible assumption is that they would stay on the same course during their next term in office. It is also possible that the politicians would radically change course and, in principle, one can make theories trying to predict such changes. However, in practice, people (myself included) are usually very bad at making such predictions.