Resolution of an issue is not found in data but in translating between formal models of the system being investigated. King, A.W. Environmental Sciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN 37831. I offer a model of theory in ecology. Following Robert Rosen, the model recognizes a dualism of an external world of natural systems and an inner world of formal systems within the self or mind. Formalisms relate propositions within formal systems by logical inference or other explicit internal rules of relationship.
Newtownian dynamics is an example of a formalism.
Phenomena of external natural systems are related by causality. Theory attempts to explain the natural world by embodying formal systems with external referents in natural systems. Phenomena of a natural system are encoded into propositions of a formal system by abstraction and measurement. The inferential structure of the formal system generates precise internal theorems which are predictions about causal relationships in the natural system. The predictions are tested by decoding from the inferred propositions of the formal system to observations of the natural world.