本文探讨了科学革命的结构，指出理论与事实之间的互动是双向的，并以宗教信仰转变、政治立场转变等为例说明了这种互动过程。文章强调，理论不仅受事实影响，也决定着人们观察和理解事实的方式，并认为理论的改变并非直接由矛盾的事实导致，而是一个复杂的过程，涉及心理、社会等因素。

💬 **理论与事实的互动：** 文章的核心观点是理论与事实之间的互动是双向的。一方面，事实可以影响理论的形成和改变；另一方面，理论也决定着人们观察和理解事实的方式。例如，在科学研究中，人们根据已有的理论来设计实验，并解释实验结果。然而，当实验结果与理论预测不符时，人们可能需要修改或放弃原有的理论。

💡 **理论改变的复杂性：** 文章指出，理论的改变并非直接由矛盾的事实导致，而是一个复杂的过程，涉及心理、社会等因素。例如，人们可能出于情感、信仰、社会地位等原因，而拒绝接受新的理论，即使新的理论能够更好地解释事实。此外，理论的改变也可能受到社会环境、文化背景等因素的影响。

💪 **理论改变的阶段性：** 文章以宗教信仰转变、政治立场转变等为例，说明了理论改变的阶段性。人们在接受新理论的过程中，会经历一系列的心理和行为变化，从最初的抵触到最终的接受。文章将这一过程比喻为“先是被忽视，然后被嘲笑，然后被攻击，然后被半心半意地攻击，然后是中立，然后是勉强承认你可能有点道理，尽管你很烦人，然后他们说，总的来说你是对的，尽管你忽略了一些最重要的方面，然后你就赢了”。

💫 **科学革命的本质：** 文章认为，科学革命并非简单的理论更替，而是旧理论的崩溃和新理论的建立。新理论的建立不仅需要新的事实，还需要新的思维方式，以及对旧理论的批判性反思。

💭 **结论：** 文章强调，理论与事实之间的互动是一个复杂的过程，它涉及心理、社会、文化等多种因素。理解这种互动关系，有助于我们更好地理解科学革命的本质，以及人类知识的演进过程。

Related to: Book Review: The Structure Of Scientific Revolutions

Every good conspiracy theorist needs their own Grand Unified Chart; I’m a particular fan of this one. So far, my own Grand Unified Chart looks like this:

All of these are examples of interpreting the world through a combination of pre-existing ideas what the world should be like (first column), plus actually experiencing the world (last column). In all of them, the world is too confusing and permits too many different interpretations to understand directly. You wouldn’t even know where to start gathering more knowledge. So you take all of your pre-existing ideas (which you’ve gotten from somewhere) and interpret everything as behaving the way your pre-existing ideas tell you they will. Then as you gradually gather discrepancies between what you expected and what you get (middle column), you gradually become more and more confused until your existing categories buckle under the strain and you generate a new and self-consistent set of pre-existing ideas to see the world through, and then the process begins again.

All of these domains share an idea that the interaction between facts and theories is bidirectional. Your facts may eventually determine what theory you have. But your theory also determines what facts you see and notice. Nor do contradictory facts immediately change a theory. The process of theory change is complicated, fiercely resisted by hard-to-describe factors, and based on some sort of idea of global tension that can’t be directly reduced to any specific contradiction.

(I linked the Discourse and Society levels of the chart to this post where I jokingly sum up the process of convincing someone as “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then they fight you half-heartedly, then they’re neutral, then they grudgingly say you might have a point even though you’re annoying, then they say on balance you’re mostly right although you ignore some of the most important facets of the issue, then you win.” My point is that ideological change – most dramatically religious conversion, but also Republicans becoming Democrats and vice versa – doesn’t look like you “debunking” one of their facts and them admitting you are right. It is less like Popperian falsification and more like a Kuhnian paradigm shift or a Yudkowskian crisis of faith.)