I publish this message by Richard Carter -- before the blog becomes fully operational:

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An additional question (or alternative formulation of some of your questions):

IS there a valid distinction between NTs and non-naive theories, or is the difference just one of degree? would any clear distinction one could make be arbitrary, just a matter of convenience?

(clearly the most respectable scientific theory can be wrong, so whether a T is correct or not cannot be the criterion, and presence of vague terms or lack of falsification criteria would make NTs out of many publications in scientific journals, and almost all published research in the "human sciences", so what clear, non-arbitrary criteria might there be? Or is the distinction between Naive and Serious Theories merely sociological: naive theories don't get published?)

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Here are some distinctions I think need to be made early on:

A. One important distinction is between Language-dependent and non-language dependent beliefs and "theories"

(1) the sets of beliefs some call "theories" which are acquired early (even before language, for instance infants' beliefs or expectations about things falling, etc.), or are perhaps even innate, and are shared with other species (cf. "Folk Physics for Apes", why not "Real Physics for Apes"? The title implies that any physical theories apes could have must be naive, hence that NTs do not require language, and puts apes' beliefs in the same boat with the Mayan folk belief that if you play with morning glory flowers your ears will rot), and

(2) those which could not exist without language and which are (to some degree) acquired with the help of language, are hence culture-specific, (like the morning glory belief, the tooth fairy belief) etc.

Further questions are whether some aspects (and which) of these culture-specific, acquired, NTs are/can be acquired independently of language, how, and what aspects require language, etc.

My guess is that a lot of what people will be calling NTs will be culture-specific, acquired via language, and, perhaps, not even recruitable without brain activity in language regions, hence not available to global aphasics, or those who have not acquired (the relevant) language, but that they will conflate ape-like NTs and highly language-dependent NTs.

There are obviously many tricky empirical questions, but various research projects are suggested, for instance NTs in other cultures, comparison of NT in some specific domain across cultures, evolution of NTs of children in correlation (or not) with evolution of linguistic competence, how the capacity to "use" a NT is affected by zapping the Language areas or giving them something else to do (cf. Spelke) etc. No doubt some people will say your (or anyone's) conception of NTs is too naive, but the scope can be narrowed, say by picking out a few specific areas for study, for instance naive physics, or a more neglected area, such as naive theories of what makes people fall in love, or create blogs.

B. explicitly acquired/taught vs. spontaneously acquired/taught

A related problem: how to distinguish, within NTs in general, the ones (often called "folk theories") which are explictily taught (for instance about curing certain illnesses, or diseases in general) or communicated in sayings or proverbs (for instance about the weather) and which are explicitly passed along through language, as opposed to sets of beliefs (or representations used as if one believed them) that are acquired more implicitly (whether via language or not) for instance about how certain kinds of objects will move, bounce, etc. Such Folk theories are often complex, and a mixture of useful insights and nonsense. Perhaps the ape-like and infant-like NTs never have nonsense, they always work to some useful degree. (I think nonsense, religion, philosophy, and what we call science require language)

C. theories vs beliefs

Another kind of narrowing that might be indispensible: first focus on beliefs, before focusing on theories: naive beliefs vs. scientific beliefs, or deferential beliefs or practices. Instead of looking at whole theories, one would look at beliefs in isolation, for instance the belief that some people are born bad, or that junk food is bad for you. that getting hit by a heavy object hurts. (among the relevant distinctions: how acquired, degree of generality, etc. and, of course: is there a clear distinction between naive and non-naive beliefs, or is the difference a matter of degree? do all beliefs presuppose or imply some theory?...do they necessarily come in clusters? What is the difference between a naive belief and a deferential belief (say to an expert who has a non-naive belief or theory)?

Then ask how NTs are related to beliefs: Do we want to define a NT as just any set of beliefs used to explain or understand some discernable domain, of which at least one of the beliefs is naive? could, in principle, a NT be composed entirely of non-naive beliefs, (or a non-NT of NBs) etc.? How can one even begin to look at NTs without getting clear about naive beliefs? Just what IS the relation between NTs and NBs?

R. Carter