theorizing

Theology is like assuming that there is a black cat in a dark room where in fact there is no black cat, and endeavoring to study the cat's properties and how it may have evolved from its ancestors.

Science proceeds by inference, rather than by the deduction of mathematical proof. A series of observations is accumulated, forcing the deeper question: What must be true if we are to explain what is observed? What "big picture" of reality offers the best fit to what is actually observed in our experience? American scientist and philosopher Charles S. Peirce used the term "abduction" to refer to the way in which scientists generate theories that might offer the best explanation of things. The method is now more often referred to as "inference to the best explanation." It is now widely agreed to be the philosophy of investigation of the world characteristic of the natural sciences.

Oppenheimer__ theorizing was so startlingly original _ so far in advance of the corroborating observations and so far off the beaten track of astrophysical research _ that his colleagues_ ignorance cost him the recognition he deserved.

Every time that we consider our past, examine our present environment, and speculate about the future, we engage in mental projection. Contemplation merges into thinking, and thinking unspools into theorizing suppositions. Every act of attentiveness expands our state of awareness. Deductive surmises represent an ongoing process of making applicable connections between theories and facts. Devising working hypothesis represents one of the highest intellectual achievements of humankind.

I__ much better at working out ideas in action than I am in theorizing about it and then transferring my thinking to action. I don__ work that way. I work with tentative ideas and I experiment and then with that experimentation in action, I finally come to the conclusions about what I think is the right way to do it.