Thomas Kenneth Arnold, PhD
Explorations in Science is an autobiographical site that covers a lifetime of discovery in the sciences related to living systems. I had set out with big goals. When I was ten, I decided that I would write a classic book that would change the way we view the world. Since then, I have been looking for material for that book and I think that I have found what I was looking for. The challenge now is to write the book.
I have made a series of discoveries that are related to the sciences of living systems. These discoveries all fit into a “grand design” that exists in my head. My goal is to explain this grand design and get others to carry on with my work. To that end, I will be writing a series of books and journal articles. Much of this will be self published at first and then “officially” published.
I have been attempting to explain some or all of my work to others for over ten years. Most of these attempts have failed. I seem to be “ahead of my time.” My work has resulted in discoveries that lead to further discoveries that lead to still further discoveries. Some of my work is several steps beyond where current scientific thought is concentrated. People are not even asking questions about some of the scientific phenomena I have found answers for.
It has been challenging to maintain the motivation to keep working on this. One thing that helps me keep going is that a scientist named Adolphe Quetelet discovered many of the same things I have discovered in the 1800s. However, few people seem to have fully grasped what he had to say. He was “ahead of his time” as well. By at least two centuries! I may end up spinning my wheels and not get people to understand my work. C’est la vie! If I don’t try, I am guaranteed to fail.
I want to clarify up front that I use the term “discovery” as a broad general term. Some discoveries seem to be my own original ideas supported by scientific review, lots of thinking, data analysis, and modeling. These “original” discoveries seem to be entirely new, but I may be wrong. I welcome any input that can show where someone else came up with these ideas before. As the writer of the Book of Ecclesiastes wrote, “There is nothing new under the sun.”
Other discoveries involve the “re” discovery of previous work that supports my ideas. I mentioned the pioneering work of Quetelet. I probably could refer to his work to support about half of what I have come up with. There are various levels of these types of “re” discovery. Some discoveries involve finding one or two people who developed these ideas in the past. Other discoveries involve finding more extensive literature on a topic. I will be exploring the works of these other authors because one of my primary discoveries is that there are many separate scientific disciplines where the practitioners are writing about the same thing that people in other disciplines are writing about. My knowledge of various disciplines is extensive, but limited, so I welcome any new input if you know of still other disciplines where people are discussing related topics.
There are a number of problems that I need to overcome if I am to move forward. One of the biggest problems is that I have a lot to say about many different topics. Every time I start writing about one topic, several other related ideas pop into my head. I try to fit these new ideas into the text and then, after several iterations of this process, I end up with a huge mess that probably no one else will understand.
To over come this problem, I am going to be building web sites and web pages to describe my work. Whenever I see that I am diverging, I will start a new page. Over time, I will continue to develop the content on these various pages and fill any gaps I find. With this plan, I can try to sort out my ideas and come up with some overall organizational plan.
Theory, Method, and Practice
As a first step, I am breaking my work up into three sections for organizational purposes. These are loosely grouped into theory, method, and practice. In my experience, which I think is also the way science works, new theories require new methods of analysis and then, when innovations occur, new practical applications are developed. This is an iterative process where the success or failure of the new practical applications can lead to refinements in theory and possibly new methods of analysis.
In order to try to give each topic the proper coverage, I am breaking my main body of work into three websites. These are listed below. Please visit these if you want to follow my work.
Three Inter-Related Web Sites
- Theory: The Physics of Living Systems
- Method: Data Pattern Analysis
- Practice: Theory Driven Data Science
Theory: The Physics of Living Systems provides a theoretical overview of my work. The explorations span work in psychology, human development, learning theory, criminology, criminal justice, medicine, and marketing. I will show how living systems, at a basic level, follow certain laws. I call these laws “the facts of life.” Because certain processes are repeated over an over, we can look at data that is easy to measure and get a better understanding of processes that are almost invisible.
Method: Data Pattern Analysis provides descriptions of the methods I used in making the discoveries described in The Physics of Living Systems. I try wherever possible to tie into existing methods of analysis, but many of these methods are not generally known. For example, while exploring crime rates over the life course, I developed a method for modeling changes in the cumulative normal distribution that were occurring due to changes in population parameters. I later discovered that this method was used in microbiology to model germ kill rates in the presence of antiseptics. This got me asking, what do germs and criminals have in common? It later turned out that the same methods work in medicine and marketing. Since these methods are not generally known outside of microbiology, I need to provide some explanations and descriptions so that the reader can refer to these when looking at the other work I am doing.
Practice: Theory Driven Data Science describes the practical applications for my work. Using my theories and methods, I was able to generate better predictive models. In studying data science, I discovered that the discipline of data science is “atheoretical” (no theory required). It seems to me that most work in data science focuses on data analysis with very little emphasis on working from a pre-conceived theory. One can run a machine learning model where the machine “learns” from the training data and makes predictions that work with new datasets. I found that knowing what to look for in advance leads to better and more accurate data science models.
Explorations in Science
As mentioned in the beginning, Explorations in Science is an autobiographical site. Please feel free to visit my other sites for more information on what I have been up to. If you are here for the story, please head to the Table of Contents. The pages are written to mimic a book, with pages corresponding to chapters. You may want to read through them in order, but the work involves a certain stream of consciousness approach. I learn best by connecting ideas as they arise. If you find an idea that you want to explore, follow the link. I have tried to set up the links to open pages in a new tab so you won’t lose your place.
I hope you enjoy reading what I have written!!