Information content (philosophy of science)

The information content of a statement is measured by the number of possibilities to check and refute ( falsify ) the statement . A statement that cannot be verified and thus also cannot be refuted therefore has no informational content. For example, the statement “If I drop the object on the floor, it will break or it will not” cannot be refuted. Every event would confirm this statement (hypothesis) and no event could refute (falsify) the statement.

This term should not be confused with the meaning of information content in Claude Shannon's information theory .

The term appears in two places in the philosophy of science:

In connection with the formulation of hypotheses

"The fewer falsifiers, the lower the information content".

"The greater the number of potential falsifiers, the higher their 'information content' ".

In connection with the scale theory and the uniqueness problem associated with it

Since linguistically formulated hypotheses are often formulated as statistical hypotheses in order to be empirically verified with the help of an experiment, a connection between the use of the term information content in both contexts is obvious. The linguistic hypothesis is formulated in the form of a statement, the statistical hypothesis can only be checked if the compared numbers have a scale level that allows checking.

With the help of a scale, statements can be made about an empirical relative. Whether you can even make the desired statement using a scale can be checked, which is explained using the following example:

"Should z. B the preference of the audience for certain types of film (science fiction, crime thriller, homeland film, etc.) are measured in such a way that a ranking is created, the "transitivity" of the preference relation must be demanded as an axiom. That means that every viewer who prefers a science fiction over a thriller and a thriller over a homeland film must also prefer a science fiction over a homeland film. If such a viewer nevertheless prefers a Heimatfilm to science fiction, the axiom of the transitivity of the preference relation is not fulfilled. Thus, no measurement can be made that allows a ranking option ”.

Individual evidence

↑ Jürgen Bortz, Nicola Döring: Research methods and evaluation for human and social scientists Springer Medizin Verlag, Heidelberg 2006, p. 5, ISBN 978-3-540-33305-0 (online)
↑ (POPPER 1976: 77f .; PRIM / TILMANN 1975: 70f.)
^ Rainer Schnell , Paul B. Hill , Elke Esser: Methods of empirical social research R. Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag , Munich, Vienna 2008, p. 63 ISBN 978-3-486-58708-1 (online)
↑ Jürgen Bortz, Nicola Döring: Research methods and evaluation for human and social scientists , Springer Medizin Verlag, Heidelberg 2006, p. 66, ISBN 978-3-540-33305-0 (online)
^ Rainer Schnell, Paul B. Hill, Elke Esser: Methods of empirical social research R. Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag , Munich, Vienna 2008, p. 140 ISBN 978-3-486-58708-1 (online)

[1] Jürgen Bortz, Nicola Döring: Research methods and evaluation for human and social scientists Springer Medizin Verlag, Heidelberg 2006, p. 5, ISBN 978-3-540-33305-0 (online)

[2] (POPPER 1976: 77f .; PRIM / TILMANN 1975: 70f.)

[3] Rainer Schnell , Paul B. Hill , Elke Esser: Methods of empirical social research R. Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag , Munich, Vienna 2008, p. 63 ISBN 978-3-486-58708-1 (online)

[4] Jürgen Bortz, Nicola Döring: Research methods and evaluation for human and social scientists , Springer Medizin Verlag, Heidelberg 2006, p. 66, ISBN 978-3-540-33305-0 (online)

[5] Rainer Schnell, Paul B. Hill, Elke Esser: Methods of empirical social research R. Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag , Munich, Vienna 2008, p. 140 ISBN 978-3-486-58708-1 (online)