Talk:Operationalization

message: No. Bridgman's philosophy separate from an operational definition which has a broader use. --Thomasmeeks 01:53, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I support this. Operationalism is the best title for a merge. But in what sense is the idea broader today? The idea is the same even though the application is broader today. I didn't say he owned the words, I said that he coined the words as he explained this philosophy for the first time ever. And who predated Bridgman according to you? iNic 16:18, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Well, the broader, looser and simpler idea that we should clearly define what we talk about in scientific matters is older than Bridgman, of course. It's connected to the Age of Enlightenment in physics (and later in other fields of science). But Bridgman's idea is much more subtle than that. The only forerunner to Bridgman is Einstein whose methodology Bridgman turned into a general philosophy. However, Einstien didn't realize he was using a new methodological philosophy; he thought he was simply implementing the philosophy of Ernst Mach. But Mach rejected Eintein's thinking. And even though Mach was not only a heavy influence to Einstein but also to the highly influential logical positivists, the positivists nevertheless rejected Bridgman's operationalism. This shows that Bridgman's philosophy was new and highly controversial at the time. iNic 12:54, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

text: However, when Bridgman's operationalism later became a buzzword even in other sciences, like psychology and the social sciences, the concept shifted meaning and became simply the label for the general cry for clearly defined concepts in those sciences, i.e., the same kind of battle that Francis Bacon and others fought during the enlightenment when it comes to physics and alchemy. This important distiction has to be stressed in the article(s) I think; that this concept originated with Bridgman but later his "operationalism" has become the label for quite a different struggle outside the natural sciences. iNic 12:54, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Merger with Operational definition?

message: Who's the Chris cited at the end of the third paragraph?
:Probably the name of the vandal himself. iNic 12:08, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Who's Chris?

message: It's painful for a physicist to realize that what she always thought was one concept is, in fact, two or more distinct concepts
Gratuitous use of the female pronoun is just as annoying as gratuitous use of the male.
How about "It's painful for a physicist to realize that what appears to be a single concept is, in fact, two or more distinct concepts"?
I'd change it myself except that all my edits seem to be undone these days. 84.9.82.184 10:43, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gender 

message: Should be more about the 1950's social-science meaning of "operationalism", which claimed that unless you could lay out a series of steps by which something could be concretely measured, then it simply didn't exist scientifically.  Operationalism was related to the concepts of behaviorism and logical positivism which prevailed at that time.  Also, the view was sometimes held that it wasn't really adequate just to show that a theory was consistent with observations -- it was also desirable or necessary to show a series of steps by which the theory could be directly derived from the observations (this was part of the meaning of "biuniqueness" in linguistics). AnonMoos (talk) 06:21, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: 1950's social sciences

message: The article says, "Previously, no one had paid any attention to the different operations used because they always produced the same results," referring to Einstein and inertial versus gravitational mass. I don't think this is right. Loránd Eötvös surely understood the distinction before Einstein was born.--75.83.69.196 (talk) 03:34, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think there should be any physics in the article. It's not a term that is used in science. Google gave me nothing apart from this 1927 book by Percy Bridgman.Bhny (talk) 23:34, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

text: Also the general relativity example is contradicted by the last sentence where it says he used operationalization in Special relativity and not in General. I'll delete the paragraph unless anyone can fix it. Here's a pretty good reference about it- [] At the heart of special relativity was Einstein's recognition that judging the simultaneity of two events separated in space required a different operation from that required for judging the simultaneity of two events happening at the same place. So Bridgman actually was talking about simultaneity *not* equivalence. Bhny (talk) 00:02, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: bogus physics example?

message: How is this operationalization? Is there a source that says that operationalization is used to indicate black holes? A quote would be good. Bhny (talk) 00:11, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  X-ray source is used as an indicator of black holes 

message: :"It is the process of defining a fuzzy concept so as to make the theoretical concept clearly distinguishable or measurable, and to understand it in terms of empirical observations."
# Is the below sentence equivalent to the above sentence that is taken from the lead section of the article?Operationalization is the process of defining a theoretical concept, which can be fuzzy, to make it clearly distinguishable or measurable, and to understand it in terms of empirical observations.
# fuzzy ≡? theoretical
Perhaps more clear explanations upfront, for the sake of a smoother incision?
*Definition::Empirical(adj):"Derived from experiment and observation rather than theory"
*Theoretical definition (also called conceptual definition) is defining a phenomenon conceptually, i.e. in an abstract manner, without an operation that specifies the definition in an applicable/verifiable manner.
*Operational definition is defining a phenomenon operationally, i.e. with the operation that is used to measure/quantify/observe a theoretical phenomenon.
Recreational Stuff (*cough* thought-provoking)
If this page was majorly prepared by philosophers, is there a point in writing fifty billion pages if less than half will make sense? My old man used to say that a philosopher should always have a statistician handy, although I always vote yes for maths, EECS, and astro/aeo.
78.162.27.28 (talk) 04:22, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[fuzzy concept|"Fuzzy" Language]] 

message: I think the section that talks of operationalization in general relativity should first mention the operationalization that led to special relativity, particularly as that seems to be the earliest use (1905) of operationalization.  Einstein's insight that led to special relativity was that "distance", "time", and "simultaneity" were not defined unambiguously, and that they needed to be defined in terms of measurements that were theoretically possible in any frame of reference.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Philgoetz (talk • contribs) 05:33, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Relativity 

message: I thought the following text was very strange:
"Another example is the radius of a sphere, obtaining different values depending on the way it is measured (say, in metres and in millimeters)."
Operationalization is not about units.
It turns out this was from a change in 2011!
I would just change it back, but I don't now if the previous version is a lot better, talking about the radius of an electron.
Anyone got any ideas?
Yaris678 (talk) 19:50, 12 March 2021‎ (UTC)
:Just found this later change (2020), which seems to be influenced by the implication that choice of units is a good example of operationaziation.  Yaris678 (talk) 21:47, 4 October 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  in metres and in millimeters