Apurva Ratan Murty | Assistant Professor, Psychology | Georgia Institute of Technology

Jared Medina | Associate Professor, Psychology | Emory University

"To Predict or To Explain"

What is even the point of our science? Is it to build models that predict what brains and minds will do even if we don’t fully understand how, or is it to explain the inner workings of the mind and brain, even if our models fall short of accurate predictions or practical mental health benefits.

In this debate-styled meeting, Jared Medina will argue for explanation as the soul of science. Without causal, interpretable, mechanistic accounts, we’re just playing with high-tech models and curve-fitting. For him the goal of our science is about generating understanding in human interpretable terms.

On the opposing side, Apurva Ratan Murty will champion prediction as the only reliable test of scientific understanding. If your theory can’t predict new data, it has limited value. Models that generalize, however messy or uninterpretable, are the real engines of discovery and measure of progress.

This brings us to the core of the conflict. Is prediction sufficient for explanation, or even preferable? Can we trust models we do not understand, or does demand for interpretability needlessly limit our predictive power? Should we be architects of models as tools to describe, anticipate, and control brain behavior, or storytellers who illuminate the architecture of the mind?

Join us as we debate these foundational questions and consider what our field should value most and how these seemingly opposing frameworks co-exist.

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NOTE: The views and opinions expressed by the speaker do not necessarily reflect those held by the Center for Mind, Brain, and Culture or Emory University.