More about curve fitting

Here's a couple of links about curve fitting.

Curve fitting made easy - The Industrial Physicist
Wikipedia Entry on Curve Fitting
Curve Fitting in Microsoft Excel

One of the important things about curve fitting that is mentioned, briefly, in the first link, is that properly using the curve fitting technique requires some background knowledge and assumptions. It is always possible to find a curve that will match the data to some degree. In many cases, it is always possible to create a curve that fits better than the one produced by your own theory or the theory of anyone else. This is because if we are willing to consider more parameters to our theories, more aspects where we can identify a different value, we have more power over the shape of our curve. With one parameter, we have a straight line on our graph, with two parameters we have a single "bend" in our curve, and with each additional parameter we have the potential for another "bend" somewhere in our graph to turn our curve towards a data point.


However, curve fitting is not supposed to be some sort of mathematical exercise, but a means of determining the which theory of a pre-selected group of theories is the best. This means that curve fitting cannot stand on its own as a theory selection method.

Curve fitting is a good metaphor for scientific reasoning in general. If we look at theory selection from only one direction, we may be basing our scientific beliefs on something pathological.

Fitting the Curve

One of the ways to show that your scientific theory matches available data is to plot data points on a graph and show how your theory predicts a curve on this graph that passes through, or close enough to, these data points. This can have a great visual impact and this can have a great psychological impact on accepting or rejecting a scientific claim. This visual impact remains at work in our society even though contemporary scientific practise appeals to mathematical analysis on just how good a given curve fits the data rather than visual analysis. Thus this aspect of science and its acceptance seems like an apt choice for a blog primarily about the use and portrayal of science in media.

Of course, the title of the blog is a pun of sorts. This is somewhat ironic yet, if you know me, not unexpected. It is ironic because one of my pet peeves is the use of puns in what should otherwise be serious and informative news media. However, I just can't resist the urge to make and point out puns, intentional or unintentional. I apologize in advance.