  Program review in the physical sciences may benefit from a framework within
which to quantitatively discuss the scientific merit of a proposed theoretical
program of research, and to assess the scientific merit of a particular
theoretical paper. This article interprets a previously proposed measure of
experimental scientific merit in a manner appropriate for quantifying the
scientific merit of completed and proposed theoretical research. With this
interpretation, the resulting figure of merit represents a proposal for a
quantitative measure of total scientific merit.
