Abstract
There is a long-lasting and controversial discourse on the role of quantitative and qualitative data and methods in science, at least since the “Newtonian turn” in physics in the seventeenth century. After this successful step in the mathematical formalization of a large branch of physics, nowadays called “classical mechanics”, it was used as a kind of paradigmatic case by many theorists of science. Thereby, standards for scientific processes and theory structures were imposed on realms of science dealing with dramatically different subjects and having different purposes than classical mechanics. This was controversially discussed within the debate on positivism, but it still has a strong influence on our understanding of science.
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Notes
- 1.
For example, by reformulating the laws of motion as a variational principle by Lagrange (eighteenth century), implying more a (divine) purpose of the whole trajectory/history than reducing the options of God to defining the initial condition and the Newtonian laws
- 2.
Even by inner physical reasons like macroscopic irreversibly or, later, deterministic chaos
- 3.
Retrodiction means the prediction of an event in the past from initial situations and conditions even further in the past.
- 4.
Poor predictions of the economic cycle, wrongly predicted convergence of developing and developed countries, etc.
- 5.
For an interesting approach to deal with structural uncertainty, see Van Asselt and Rotmans (2002). They suggest a systematic exploration of different combinations of modules of an IAM along ideas of cultural theory.
- 6.
Smith, Keynes, Malthus, Hobbes, Morris, Mill
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Lüdeke, M.K.B. (2013). Bridging Qualitative and Quantitative Methods in Foresight. In: Giaoutzi, M., Sapio, B. (eds) Recent Developments in Foresight Methodologies. Complex Networks and Dynamic Systems, vol 1. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5215-7_4
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