Dramatica and Science

#1

What I’m about to say I mean in a respectful tone with intent to have a constructive discussion.

To prove a theory, it isn’t sufficient to find a place where it works. It isn’t even sufficient to find a hundred places where it works.

Karl Popper described the characteristics of a scientific theory as follows:
1.) It is easy to obtain confirmations, or verifications, for nearly every theory—if we look for confirmations.
2.) Confirmations should count only if they are the result of risky predictions; that is to say, if, unenlightened by the theory in question, we should have expected an event which was incompatible with the theory—an event which would have refuted the theory.
3.) Every “good” scientific theory is a prohibition: it forbids certain things to happen. The more a theory forbids, the better it is.
4.) A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is non-scientific. Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory (as people often think) but a vice.
5.) Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or to refute it. Testability is falsifiability; but there are degrees of testability: some theories are more testable, more exposed to refutation, than others; they take, as it were, greater risks.
6.) Confirming evidence should not count except when it is the result of a genuine test of the theory; and this means that it can be presented as a serious but unsuccessful attempt to falsify the theory. (I now speak in such cases of “corroborating evidence”.)
7.) Some genuinely testable theories, when found to be false, might still be upheld by their admirers—for example by introducing post hoc (after the fact) some auxiliary hypothesis or assumption, or by reinterpreting the theory post hoc in such a way that it escapes refutation. Such a procedure is always possible, but it rescues the theory from refutation only at the price of destroying, or at least lowering, its scientific status, by tampering with evidence. The temptation to tamper can be minimized by first taking the time to write down the testing protocol before embarking on the scientific work.

I want to focus your attention on point 1 above. I’m not criticizinig Dramatica, itself, here as much as I am criticizing some attempts to assert that Dramatica works which focus only on confirmations of the theory. I’ll also add that, as long as Dramatica is helpful in creating stories (which is going to vary from writer to writer), I don’t really believe that it has to be scientific or supported by science.

Is mental relativity a scientific theory - ktad and e=mc2
#2

Dramatica isn’t a scientific theory, though. It’s a literary theory. In the literary world, “theory” means something different than it does in science: specifically, it’s something more along the lines of a filter, or a way of analyzing and critiquing written works. It analyzes fiction (and non-fiction, to a lesser extent) using the basic framework of, “Suppose a story can be represented by a single mind attempting to solve a problem.”

Literary theories aren’t falsifiable; you’re absolutely right. But that’s really not the point. Marxist theory, say, isn’t trying to suggest that all stories are “about” economic disparity; rather, it’s about taking a story that already exists and looking specifically at its economic and class elements.

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#3

I’m used to thinking of that as a model or a view, not a theory. But, I lack the literary background most of you have. Thanks for the clarification.

#4

It’s a common confusion, and one I don’t necessarily have a good explanation for why. The cynic in me thinks that the academics in English tried to create a theory with the same amount of rigor as scientific theory (probably the New Critics), but they failed. :sweat_smile:

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#5

What exactly is the purpose of this topic?

#6

To discuss Dramatica as scientific, if it even is scientific. That was the original intent.
But, @actingpower did a really awesome job responding to my original question. So, now, I’d say the thread is pretty much resolved.

#7

I see it as a theory of how the mind tries to solve a problem. By analyzing films — more demonstrably those produced long before 1993 — it’s showing there are instincts in the writing imagination which guide films in certain directions.

#8

My amateur take on Popper is that focusing so much on falsification (an aspect of deduction) goes too far in that it doesn’t recognize the primary way that humans actually learn: induction.

For example, the economic laws of supply and demand are not falsifiable because no number of experiments will render them true or false. Other examples exist especially in many moral philosophies. For example, humans have a specific means of survival & flourishing: using their senses & reason. Thus, moral goodness includes pro-senses & pro-reason behaviors & decisions while moral badness includes anti-senses (e.g. evading reality, substance abuse, stupor–as a chronic way of life) and anti-reason (e.g. irrational biases, beliefs, etc).

In short, the narrow test of falsifiablility is not terribly useful for some concepts. Thus, in real life (not in a logic 101 course) falsification plays a limited role while induction is indispensable. Whether dramatica is or is not falsifiable, the answer to that question doesn’t help determine it’s truth or utility. It only tells me if it fits into a narrow box of concepts that have strict deductive requirements.

TL;DR A lack of falsifiability does not imply a falsehood. Not all truths are falsifiable deductions like newton’s laws. Some truths are inductive like the law of supply & demand.

#9

Again, though, I would call supply and demand a “model,” rather than a theory.
But, my main point is that It is easy to obtain confirmations, or verifications, for nearly every theory—if we look for confirmations.

#10

Popper’s way is not the single exhaustive method of deriving truth through observation & reason–whether it’s called science, a model, a theory, or another term.

#11

The point I was addressing is whether or not Dramatica is scientific and to what extent

Is irrelevant to the original post because the original post is referencing only science.
If you want to shift the thread to include some other method of deriving truth through observation and reason, feel free to do so. I’m curious as to which such method you have in mind.