Rosettes and Revelations Pt.1: The Holy City - Koen Gheuens and Cary Rapaport

[Mark Knowles]

Another issue is that the more details one forces into one's theory, the more entrenched this theory becomes.

That is true. However I think it is not a good argument against having more detailed theories. On that basis one might conclude that the fewer details a theory addresses the better the theory. So the best theory would then always be the null-theory, which is the theory that says nothing. It is a completely unbiased theory. However, a null-theory is also completely useless. The minute you state one detail you make the theory slightly entrenched. So, the moment you create the hypothesis that the page is "Holy Jerusalem" the theory has already become a bit entrenched and prone to confirmation bias. So, I would restate that I don't see this as a good argument for having less detailed theories.

I don't think we should "force" details into our theory. However, I do think we should force our theories to contend with and address details and not ignore them. I think the theorist needs to acknowledge all the details and then suggest the best possible explanations for those details that they see or state that they cannot think of an explanation for a given detail. Pretending that awkward details are not there is no good for a theory.