(Theory) Versioning
An introduction to Git and versioned theories
Research Transparency - for theories?
„Crucially, scientific models are expressed in unambiguous language such that anyone can interpret the model and its claims about the world. Contrary to mental models (which live in a person’s mind), scientific models are transparent and public (that is, external) representations.” (van Rooij, 2022)
Slide by Karolin Salmen, CC-BY; Comic by S. Harris (1977)
Open Theorizing
- Fair access to knowledge: Who has access to the experts with the secret knowledge (who are able to explain/interpret their theory)?
- Reproducibility: Which version of a theory was gültig at a specific point in time?
- Falsifiability: When parts of the theory (the “miracles”) are only private knowledge of the theory gurus, they are not falsifiable
How to make a theory open and reproducible
TODO Glöckner
- Make it versioned (–> semantic versioning)
- Put an open license on it