The Right of a Theory to Empirical Testing: Organisational and Metascientific Constraints on the Study of Soil after War. Version 1.1

Abstract

The protocol examines the metascientific and organisational problem of studying soil after war. Soil altered by war is a configurational and theory-dependent object of observation: its condition is determined not by a single contaminant, but by a combination of the territory's prior history, military impact, functional changes, new pathways of substance transfer, the disappearance or appearance of pollution sources, subsequent use, and long-term ecological relations. Soil contains more potential information than any single study can record. Theory therefore precedes the scientific fact: it determines sampling locations and depths, the list of substances, detection limits, the time horizon, and the relations to be studied. Particular attention is given to three levels of an expert's initial position—declared, operational, and institutional—and to how the boundary of a specialist's competence may be mistaken for the boundary of the object. The normative substitution of theory is examined: a state standard is used as if it were a complete model of soil, although it is a historically limited regulatory instrument. The concepts of normative time lag, lawful invisibility, momentary normative safety, and the normative trap of military pollution are introduced. Theoretical diversity is understood not as recognition that all theories are true, but as the right of a theory that has formulated testable consequences to gain access to data and conditions of testing. Denial of such access creates the paradox of forbidden evidence. The theory of military ecotones is considered as a specific case, and an open pre-project theoretical and methodological review of international research is proposed.