A criterion is proffered for testing the organizing power of a theory: that theory is preferred to all alternative theories which has the highest ratio of the number of cases to which the theory applies to the number of essential variables which that theory must employ, holding constant the minimal accuracy and statistical significance demanded of the findings. The theory that industrial workers are more likely to vote for socialist parties than other workers is evaluated by this criterion. The distinguished authors are on the faculties of the universities of Michigan and Yale.
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References
1.
Research for this paper was supported in part by the Carnegie Corporation, and by the National Institute of Health under grant no. MH 08607.
2.
The term "theory," as used in this paper, includes single propositions and correlations between two variables, as well as more elaborate configurations of propositions, which often are thought of as forming "theories" in the narrower sense of the word.
3.
For discussions of the evaluation of theories and models in the social sciences, see J. David Singer, "The Relevance of the Behavioral Sciences to the Study of International Relations," Behavioral Science , 6:4, October 1961, pp. 324-335
4.
; and Karl W. Deutsch, The Nerzes of Government, New York, Free Press, 1963
5.
, and "On Theories, Taxonomies and Models," Behavioral Science , 1965.
6.
Cf. Hermann Weyl, Philosophy of Mathematics and Natural Sciences , Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1949, pp. 146-147, 155-157.
7.
The formula Di/V would express the organizing efficiency of the same theory in a qualitative sense, that is, it would denote the sets and kinds of cases or objects to which the theory applied. (See point 7 in the preceding section of this paper.)
8.
For a brief discussion of scales and measurements, see e.g. S. S. Stevens (ed.), Handbook of Experimental Psychology, New York, Wiley, 1951, Ch. 1
9.
; Marie Jaloda, Morton Deutsch and S.W. Cook, Research Me hods in Social Relations, New York, Dryden Press, 1951, 1955, pp. 117-127; etc.
10.
Cf Norbert Wiener , Cybernetics, Cambridge, Mass , MIT Press, 1948
11.
; Leonard J. Savage, The Foundations of Statistics, New York, Wiley, 1954. The authors are indebted to Anatol Rapoport for aid on this point, and to Howard Raiffa and the late Norbert Wiener for earlier communications. The responsibility for the present formulat on remains, however, their own.
