hypothesis generation and information

Science is an art of omission. It requires a lot skill to see which details are not terribly relevant to the behaviour of the system that is being analysed. (Especially if the system is a complex one.) If you are lucky though, some of the unessential details may have already been pushed out of your sight. (Perhaps you are simply ignorant of some facts that are already available in the literature. Or perhaps it is the technological limitations - which ultimately define what is empirically available to you - that is working in your favour.) In other words, knowing less can be helpful in the generation of scientific hypotheses. Here are three examples:

- If Darwin knew about Mendelian genetics, he could have been dissuaded from formulating his famous theses. Mendelian genetics does not generate the massive amount of change that is needed for speciation.

- How could Kepler have formulated his (beautiful and simple) laws of planetary motion if he knew about every single irregularity and perturbation in the planetary orbits? For instance, the precession of Mercury's orbit could only be explained after Einstein's invention of General Relativity.

- Theory of General Relativity itself was a product of “ignorance” as well. Here is an excerpt from Philipp Frank’s book on Einstein (Page 249): Hilbert once said: “Every boy in the streets of our mathematical Göttingen understands more about four-dimensional geometry than Einstein. Yet, despite that, Einstein did the work and not the mathematicians.” And he once asked a gathering of mathematicians: “Do you know why Einstein said the most original and profound things about space and time that have been said in our generation? Because he had learnt nothing about all the philosophy and mathematics of time and space.”

Knowing more may not help you neither. Greater information can result in increased uncertainty. An example:

- You receive a tidbit that the existing CEO at Company X may be replaced with an a-lot-more innovative and risk-loving person. The future of Company X is now looking more uncertain. Therefore, due to the increased number of possible future scenarios, creating a valuation model for Company X has become a harder task for you.