Jellymatter

In fact, what Gould has mistaken for “reification” is neither more nor less than the common practice in every science of hypothesizing explanatory models or theories to account for the observed relationships within a given domain. Well-known examples include the heliocentric theory of planetary motion, the Bohr atom, the electromagnetic field, the kinetic theory of gases, gravitation, quarks, Mendelian genes, mass, velocity, and so forth. None of these constructs exists as a palpable entity occupying physical space.

– Arthur Jensen

I’ve been thinking more about this idea of reification, that I brought up in my last post. I was originally going to respond to the slightly confusing discussion that got going about it, but I didn’t want to hijack a thread by going on about Spearman’s g again.

So as I understand it one argument against this reification idea, is that everything in science is “reified”. In a way, if you are willing to go to slightly absurd sounding extremes, your concept of there being a coffee cup in front of you may be a reification, because you can’t prove a coffee cup is physically there just from the photons hitting your eyes. Arthur Jensen’s reply to Gould, which I’ve quoted above, sort of makes this point. Spearman said that g may be the result of a “mental energy”, but according to Jensen this is just a scientific hypothesis, and therefore valid. The heliocentric model of the solar system that most of us accept as pretty basic science could also be said to be a reification. Even if the planets are physically there, the model of the planets is no more a physical thing than Spearman’s g.

When I try to think about this problem I have to admit that the whole reification notion is a bit confusing if you try and get philosophical about it. I think essentially it comes down to the fact that actual scientific hypotheses make testable predictions, which after some time (in human history) get investigated and a consistent theory gets worked out. The hypothesis that “Spearman’s g is a result of some kind of energy in your brain” doesn’t, which is what makes it so silly.