Category talk:Theories

size

Is there not supposed to be the big shrink? 74.237.29.31 02:10, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

What the use of such broad category? Chemistry theories must be under Chemistry, psychological theories under Psychology. When you are, for example, physicist, you are not interested in Conspiracy theories. I think this category must be deleted. Orionus 08:41, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

I've added {{catdiffuse}} so that articles are diffused into appropriate subcategories. 132.205.44.5 04:33, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

The purpose of this category

Some participants in the deletion discussion seem to know what this category is good for. Unfortunately they forgot to write an introduction, so I had to do it based on its current contents:

This category is intended to contain all other categories and articles which carry the word "theory" in their name or are vaguely related to theories.

I am sure those who feel responsible for the category can improve this text. --Hans Adler (talk) 16:53, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

As the second CfD has shown, a lot of people are prepared to fight for the preservation of this category, but not to write a proper description. I have removed the absurd description now. I will now use my own judgement and remove all articles from this category that should not, in my opinion, be in it. --Hans Adler (talk) 13:54, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Biology theories

Are there no biology theories? There are physics, chemistry, geology, psychology and sociology here, why no biology? Isn't evolution a theory? biogenesis? Hardy-Weinberg, there are many.Tstrobaugh (talk) 19:30, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I think the main problem with this category is that nobody is really interested in it, nobody knows what kind of articles it is supposed to contain, or how it is supposed to be used. Mathematics has numerous branches, listed as subcategories of Category:Mathematics. Some of them have the word "theory" in their name, which is just an accident of language. These, and no others, appear as subcategories here. It looks like a borderline case of Wikipedia:Overcategorization#Unrelated subjects with shared names. I would like to fix this problem, but so long as nobody bothers to make the category description a bit more precise I don't know what to do.

I am beginning to suspect that (apart from overcategorisers) the category is wanted mainly by creationists and similar people who like to tag certain articles as "theories" in order to support the often repeated equivocation that evolution is a theory and therefore we can't really know if it is a fact. And perhaps by a certain type of people who think they are sociologists and like to talk about things they don't understand.

One problem is that the definition and status of "theories" is certainly subject dependent. I don't know if biologists use the word in the same way as mathematicians. If they did, I would expect to see the "theory of cells", the "theory of animals", the "theory of birds", the "theory of plant roots" and so on within your new subcategory. Basically all of biology. Is there any particular reason why you haven't included them? What's special about the fields you have included? --Hans Adler (talk) 22:23, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

"theory of cells" is listed under "Cell Theory". I don't know what "theory of birds" or "theory of roots" are but if you find them go ahead and categorize them. The only thing the categories I tagged have in common is that I am aware of them. Feel free to add more. I was actually thinking of linking the "theory" in some way with the "experiment" as in Category:Science experiments. There are biology, chemistry, physics and psychology experiments listed. Perhaps you can tell me if the field you are an expert in (math?) uses the words "theory" and "experiment" in the ways defined in Scientific method? I know that is how they are used in biology and psychology. If you think I have a bias see my user page, I edit biology and psychology because I have degrees in them and am a member of their respective wikipedia projects.Tstrobaugh (talk) 14:56, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

I must admit that I had already checked your user page, based on the odd coincidence of the pages you are interested in. (Coincidence because my thoughts on this category predate your edits.) The result was so obvious that I was a bit negligent and didn't make it clear enough I wasn't suspecting you.

Mathematics is somewhat special in that we have (more or less) absolute truths and it doesn't seem to make much sense to apply terminology from the scientific method to this as if it was a science. "Experiments" in mathematics usually amount to trying to verify theorems that we suspect to hold in a finite number of special cases. Some of the stuff in the Collatz conjecture article is the closest analogue to scientific experiments in the usual sense that I know of. For us, "the theory of X" is just a large body of results about X which more or less fit together. Either most of mathematics seems to belong into the "theory" category or practically none of it, depending on the exact definition of the category. There is even a paragraph Scientific method#Relationship with mathematics, but it's not clear to me how it helps.

To take a specific example from biology, I have the impression that the article on rooss is mainly about their basic "theory"; perhaps everything except the "economic importance" section. Would you agree with that, or is there an aspect of a "theory" that is missing here? And what uses do you see for this category? Why would someone want to navigate through all the theory articles and skip the others? --Hans Adler (talk) 18:37, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

roos is a bad link or I don't understand it. Can't comment. I made it clear that "theory" and "experiment" are related by the scientific method. Which is a subcategory of Philosophy of Science, which is a subcategory of Philosophy (of which maths are also a branch). No one has to skip any categories, just organizing the way I see the world.Tstrobaugh (talk) 19:53, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Sorry for the silly typo, I don't know how this happened. I meant roots. — I don't think we have clear rules for when (not) to create categories, but I have often heard that it is typically as a navigational aid. I thought you might have evidence that it's actually useful in this way, which could have kept me from proposing this category for deletion once more. --Hans Adler (talk) 20:27, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

If you can't see how I just laid out the strategy of navigation, from philosophy down to theory and experiment I don't know what else I can say.Tstrobaugh (talk) 20:58, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

It's not that I would insist on deleting this category. I just want to solve the ridiculous treatment of mathematics that we have here, and since I still don't understand its intended purpose, deleting it altogether seems to be one of the options for the inconsistent treatment of mathematics. (Model theory, number theory, proof theory, set theory, obstruction theory appear as subcategories, and algebra, analysis, functional analysis, topology, geometry do not. This makes no sense whatsoever since the distinguishing feature seems to be the name only.) I am not much wiser than I was before, but at least now I have a slight preference for one of the three obvious solutions to this inconsistency: Removing all mathematical "theories" from this category, as they are probably not "theories" in the sense of the scientific method. However, I suspect that even the sciences have similar problems; that's why I was interested in the root example. --Hans Adler (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 21:23, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

POV tag

Now this category has a description, but one that makes no sense. It describes formal theories as studied in formal logic, which is very obviously not what this category contains. The last sentence is particularly silly, because "basis is some initial set of assumptions describing the field's approach to a subject matter" applies equally to all fields of mathematics, even those that don't carry the word "theory" in their name. But what I like best is the implication that a conspiracy theory is "nothing more than a group of true sentences". Well done!

Unfortunately, as I explained above, I don't understand the purpose of this category either. Therefore I am not in a position to fix the description. --Hans Adler (talk) 02:27, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Hans, your statement as to what is obvious fails to observe the obvious fact that "theories as studied in formal logic" are only useful in that they are the general form in which all theories which are about some contensive subject matter participate. That means it is perfectly appropriate description to enlist. You seem to believe logic is just for you and your buddies, whereas I believe terms used "in logic" are for everyone's use "in reality."

This category is not intended for the narrow subject of theories as you view them. I think you are looking for the metatheory category which contains the narrowly defined scope involving articles about forming theories in general. I'm going to remove that tag and cite this as yet another case of DCW.

As for your concern about mathematical theories, I agree that this category certainly does apply to them (with "theory" in the name or otherwise). It would be my suggestion that they be organized under "theories of deduction," which I unfortunately named "deductive theories" at the time I created it. I would recommend that we rename "deductive theories" to "theories of deduction" and put mathematical theories generally under that. This may very well include a lot of topics, and some whose title should be changed so as to be consistent with the the organizational scheme. I leave it up to you and others how you do that.

In general this category should distinguish between "theories" and "concepts" which should go in a separate category structure. I had proposed to differentiate broadly between empirical and non-empirical theories, however we are left with "philosophical theories" covering that subject matter instead.

I also would like to further specify "conspiracy theories" if possible. Pontiff Greg Bard (talk) 20:47, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

You are mistaking, not for the first time, I believe, a mathematical concept that tries to capture a few essential features of a notion (in this case "theory") with the notion itself. A ball that is thrown is a ball that is thrown, not a differential equation. A sociological theory (for example) is a sociological theory, not a theory in the sense of formal logic. Ask any sociologist, and you will be told that it's simply not true that a sociological theory is just a set of sentences. Its history is not a set of sentences. Who believes in it, who formed it, who rejects it, and the relations between these people are not a set of sentences. And so on. And these are all part of the theory.

And no, there is no need to create a new category structure that is almost completely parallel to Category:Mathematics, and to spam it all over the mathematics part of the encyclopedia. Thank you very much. I am sure there is a rule against such parallel categories. You can look it up yourself. --Hans Adler (talk) 22:50, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

No Hans, I am not mistaken. I am not mistaken at all. Please let me correct you: Yes it is the same concept of "theory." This misperception is a product of your ideologically driven image of mathematics and logic. In the case of the sociologist whom you speak for (of); it is the proper role of a logician to correct them of their mistaken belief. Yes a sociological theory IS just a set of sentences, and to view it otherwise is to not think correctly in identifying it. This is the proper role of a logician, to identify wrong thinking, and identify improper use of terminology, and to clarify, etcertera. So when a sociologist (really just you Hans) claims that a sociological theory is so much more than a group of sentences, its the people and etcetera; THATS WRONG, period. We should be absolutely clear! You are wrong, incorrect.

A sociological theory is a particular group of statements each of which is taken as true and together support some explanation about the answer to some question in the field. What you speak of as far as the personalities, culture and relationships ARE NOT PART of the theory, they are separate entities which have relationships to the theory (believer, critic, falsifying event, etcetera. At some point we have to be able to say intelligently what is and is not a theory. This is the whole point of theory (mathematical logic). If we take your false view, there is no ability to speak intelligently about theories at all. It's a critical thinking mess. Fortunately you are wrong, and we are able to intelligently talk about what is or is not a theory.

I am not proposing a parallel category structure, but rather one which is intended to eventually replace others. A category such as this makes that possible in several areas. Furthermore, there is a need to differentiate between the concepts which sometimes take the form of a theorem of a theory, and the theory itself. This is what categories are for. Be well, Hans. Please admit your error for once. Pontiff Greg Bard (talk) 23:18, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

I remove abstraction category

For prevent the loops between abstraction category and theory categoryZipodu (talk) 15:40, 26 July 2020 (UTC)