Effective Theories and Theory Choice
Promoting a theory with a finite number of terms into an effective field theory with an infinite number of terms worsens simplicity, predictability, falsifiability, and other attributes often favored in theory choice. However, the importance of these attr
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Effective Theories and Theory Choice
Abstract Promoting a theory with a finite number of terms into an effective field theory with an infinite number of terms worsens simplicity, predictability, falsifiability, and other attributes often favored in theory choice. However, the importance of these attributes pales in comparison with consistency, both observational and mathematical consistency, which propels the effective theory to be superior to its simpler truncated version of finite terms, whether that theory be renormalizable (e.g., Standard Model of particle physics) or unrenormalizable (e.g., gravity). Some implications for the Large Hadron Collider and beyond are discussed, including comments on how directly acknowledging the preeminence of consistency can affect future theory work.
5.1 Introduction One of the most interesting questions in philosophy of science is how to determine the quality of a theory. Given the data, how can we infer a “best explanation” for the data. This often goes by the name “Inference to Best Explanation” (IBE) (Harman 1965; Lipton 1991; Clayton 1997). The wide variety of claims for important criteria are a measure of how difficult it is to come up with a clear and general algorithm for choosing between theories. Some claim even that it is intrinsically not possible to come up with a methodology of deciding (Lehrer 1974; Newton-Smith 1981). Nevertheless the goals of IBE are worthy, and the payoff is high upon increased understanding, if for no other reason than the extraphilosophical importance of distributing grant money more fairly to researchers. Furthermore, whether objective criteria for IBE are possible, all practitioners of science have no choice but to engage in the “infer” part even if they may never touch upon the “best explanation” part of IBE. The goal of this chapter is to survey theory choice criteria in the context of effective theories. It has been accepted by the physics communities that theories must be
J. D. Wells, Effective Theories in Physics, SpringerBriefs in Physics, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-34892-1_5, © The Author(s) 2012
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5 Effective Theories and Theory Choice
“effectified”, that is they must be augmented to include all possible interactions consistent with the stated symmetries to all orders. On the surface the resulting effective theories are in conflict with the rules of IBE, whether they be the murky rules that some physicists put forward when they talk about theory choice, or the precisely stated rules developed by philosophers. Upon closer inspection effective theories rise quickly to the top in theory choice when admitting to the primacy of consistency in theory choice. That is the claim, to be developed below. The reader should be warned that I will use the acronym IBE to mean any attitude, theory, system by which people decide that one theory is a better description of nature than another, or that a theory under consideration is a good theory at all.
5.2 The Standard Model’s Triumphs and Woes This chapter is primarily written from the scie
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