Theory should be a deliberately one-sided tool that risks falsification

Evidence

The remedy is to regard theory as what it is: a tool of explanation, not something that models all facets of the concrete. We want deliberate one-sidedness that may fall in clean, competitive tests, not deliberate, or face-saving, eclecticism. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 4381

Categorization

• XREF: This is Popperian falsificationism applied to social science theorizing — connects to the reader’s Milgrom reading on institutional theory where parsimonious models of trade beat messy description. — connects to: Academics should police policy claims for plausibility rather than merely teach
• APHORISMS: A genuine methodological life-advice nugget: prefer deliberately one-sided models that can fail to eclectic mush that can’t.