[From Samuel Saunders(951122.16:53:50 EST)]
Bill Powers (951121.2100 MST)
To make a model, one must venture a guess about invisible mechanisms,
not simply generalize from observations. I believe that the correct name
for this process is the "hypothetico-deductive" method. As I interpret
these words, they mean hypothesizing an underlying mechanism, then
deducing from the properties of that mechanism some observable
phenomenon for comparison with real observations. This is what Newton
did. This is what PCT does. I do not believe it is what reinforcement
theorists did.
This is _exactly_ what Clark Hull and Ken Spence did, and they called
their method the "hypothetico-deductive" method. Hull, Spence, and their
followers emphasized the Vienna school of logical positivist philosophy of
science in justifying their approach. The theories were replete with
"hypothetical constructs" and "intervening variables". As Bruce Abbott has
mentioned in previous posts, it was in part the proliferation of research
done in this context, which was of little or no use except in the context
of specific tests of specific theories, which lead to the "botanizing of
behavior" approach favored by many in EAB.
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//Samuel Spence Saunders,Ph.D.