@vikorr,
vikorr wrote:
You could argue that theorizing is how science is made. As long as you are happy with a loose definition, and you are discussing such within a framework that is agreed upon by all, sure, that works.
It's not a 'loose' definition because it's not meant to be an all-encompassing explanation of what goes into science.
It's just a basic statement to cut through the BS of arguing that there is some fundamental difference between theorizing in general and scientific theorizing that builds (0n) scientific theories.
Quote:The problem exists when you then want to use the word 'theorizing' (or any such word) and your attendant loose definition of it, in support of a different matter, where it's no longer agreed on or appropriate.
"Agreed on" and "appropriate" are relative/subjective. To understand theorizing and discourse at a more general level, you have to take a step back from academia, the way an anthropologist takes a step back from religion to look at it as a human institution with human individuals interacting and negotiating meanings.
Quote:You then insist 'I can use it in subject X that we discussed, so I can use it in subject Y now'....but as subject Y has a different context, your previous loose definition doesn't marry up, it creates confusion (often for others, and often for yourself, particularly if you have ulterior motives). Why would anyone want to create such confusion, other than to support beliefs that aren't properly tested. And if so, why would anyone want to have a conversation with a person who does such? The conversation would be like walking through a field of constantly moving nettles.
Because the truth is that science is all theoretical and that it's a lay misconception that there is such a thing as factual science. Good science uses facts and searches for the best theoretical explanation of them, and then critically questions existing theories to refine and/or challenge them with better theories. The point is to discard whatever proves to be less salient in favor of what is expected to be more salient. If there is uncertainty, and there should always be, then multiple theories can be considered and compared. There should be no 'winning' theories in science, only well-understood theories.
Quote:The posters who have corrected you, are correct in their use of currently accepted language in this area.
You are assuming that the authority you recognize to determine what is 'currently accepted language' is valid. In fact, there are many cultural/discursive norms that are just linguistic conventions of today and they will change in a few years or decades. If you want to think on a more transhistorical level, you have to think in more general terms of how discourse works. Theorizing is a fundamental human practice that has been going on almost as long as thought itself. Theory is knowledge that is ultimately not absolutely knowable because its complexity lies outside the range of what can be established by direct observation. E.g. redshift of distant galaxies is a directly observable fact but explaining it in terms of an expanding universe is necessarily a theory because it's not directly observable, however true it might turn out to be as a theoretical explanation.
