Tom Morris
Thinker
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- May 6, 2004
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Anybody got any opinions on Kuhnian paradigm shifts? Do you think that it is a valid theory to explain how we do science?
Simple question
- Thread starter Tom Morris
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Tom Morris said:
Yes.
My opinion : If you're going to discuss Kuhnian paradigm shifts, then make sure you discuss Kuhnian paradigm shifts. No single person, with the possible exception of Jesus Christ, has had his writings and thoughts more twisted, contorted, and outright sprained to "support" positions that are utterly gibberish and completely contradictory to the original writings. If it's not written by Kuhn, then it's presumptively not "Kuhnian."
With that said, Kuhn's works provides a pretty good descriptive account of how scientific development occurs. Please note that I said "descriptive," not "normative" or "prescriptive" -- Kuhn specifically doesn't provide either a value scale for judging/comparing paradigms, nor a field guide for predicting/generating the next paradigm shift. It's also completely useless from an epistemological point of view, because a lack of intercomparability among paradigms effectively gelds it; it forces the philosopher into a position of epistemological nihilism while at the same time explicitly denying that that position is correct.
This is from Thomas Kuhn's obituary:
His thesis was that science was not a steady, cumulative acquisition of knowledge. Instead, he wrote, it is "a series of peaceful interludes punctuated by intellectually violent revolutions." And in those revolutions, he wrote, "one conceptual world view is replaced by another."
Thus, Einstein's theory of relativity could challenge Newton's concepts of physics. Lavoisier's discovery of oxygen could sweep away earlier ideas about phlogiston, the imaginary element believed to cause combustion. Galileo's supposed experiments with wood and lead balls dropped from the Leaning Tower of Pisa could banish the Aristotelian theory that bodies fell at a speed proportional to their weight. And Darwin's theory of natural selection could overthrow theories of a world governed by design.
Professor Kuhn argued in the book that the typical scientist was not an objective, free thinker and skeptic. Rather, he was a somewhat conservative individual who accepted what he was taught and applied his knowledge to solving the problems that came before him.
In so doing, Professor Kuhn maintained, these scientists accepted a paradigm, an archetypal solution to a problem, like Ptolemy's theory that the Sun revolves around the Earth. Generally conservative, scientists would tend to solve problems in ways that extended the scope of the paradigm.
In such periods, he maintained, scientists tend to resist research that might signal the development of a new paradigm, like the work of the astronomer Aristarchus, who theorized in the third century B.C. that the planets revolve around the Sun. But, Professor Kuhn said, situations arose that the paradigm could not account for or
that contradicted it.
And then, he said, a revolutionary would appear, a Lavoisier or an Einstein, often a young scientist not indoctrinated in the accepted theories, and sweep the old paradigm away.
These revolutions, he said, came only after long periods of tradition-bound normal science. "Frameworks must be lived with and explored before they can be broken," Professor Kuhn said.
The new paradigm cannot build on the one that precedes it, he maintained. It can only supplant it. The two, he said, were "incommensurable."
http://www.sal.wisc.edu/~sobolpg/kuhn.htm
****
It seems Kuhn is trying to get a "handle" on how science progresses.
What Kuhn is trying to say in a polite way is that the majority of scientists are sheeple who follow what they were taught in college and never bother to ask questions.
That's the "peaceful interlude". The reason that innovations or revolutions occur is because every so often you get a Newton or Pasteur etc. who challenges everything and replaces it with something superior.
In other words, there's no such thing as progress without people willing to say "wait a minute maybe all this is wrong" type of thing and work out a new theory.
The mule headed jackasses that comprise most scientists like every other field resist it because they're embarrassed they never thought of it until finally any half witted idiot has to admit that the new theory is more correct.
Have you ever heard the saying, "Colleges hate genius"? What he pointed out was that it wasn't only the lack or supply of innovators, it was RESISTANCE on the part of the establishment that made science was it is. What's funny is that when someone like Galileo says there's a conspiracy to block his work and findings, HE'S RIGHT.
Here's a little about the new Nobel Prize winner in physics:
"When he was only 21 and a graduate student at Princeton, he and Gross defined the properties of color gluons, which hold atomic nuclei together. "
Just what Kuhn said would happen.
Everyone knows that's how science progresses but Kuhn wrote it down first.
His thesis was that science was not a steady, cumulative acquisition of knowledge. Instead, he wrote, it is "a series of peaceful interludes punctuated by intellectually violent revolutions." And in those revolutions, he wrote, "one conceptual world view is replaced by another."
Thus, Einstein's theory of relativity could challenge Newton's concepts of physics. Lavoisier's discovery of oxygen could sweep away earlier ideas about phlogiston, the imaginary element believed to cause combustion. Galileo's supposed experiments with wood and lead balls dropped from the Leaning Tower of Pisa could banish the Aristotelian theory that bodies fell at a speed proportional to their weight. And Darwin's theory of natural selection could overthrow theories of a world governed by design.
Professor Kuhn argued in the book that the typical scientist was not an objective, free thinker and skeptic. Rather, he was a somewhat conservative individual who accepted what he was taught and applied his knowledge to solving the problems that came before him.
In so doing, Professor Kuhn maintained, these scientists accepted a paradigm, an archetypal solution to a problem, like Ptolemy's theory that the Sun revolves around the Earth. Generally conservative, scientists would tend to solve problems in ways that extended the scope of the paradigm.
In such periods, he maintained, scientists tend to resist research that might signal the development of a new paradigm, like the work of the astronomer Aristarchus, who theorized in the third century B.C. that the planets revolve around the Sun. But, Professor Kuhn said, situations arose that the paradigm could not account for or
that contradicted it.
And then, he said, a revolutionary would appear, a Lavoisier or an Einstein, often a young scientist not indoctrinated in the accepted theories, and sweep the old paradigm away.
These revolutions, he said, came only after long periods of tradition-bound normal science. "Frameworks must be lived with and explored before they can be broken," Professor Kuhn said.
The new paradigm cannot build on the one that precedes it, he maintained. It can only supplant it. The two, he said, were "incommensurable."
http://www.sal.wisc.edu/~sobolpg/kuhn.htm
****
It seems Kuhn is trying to get a "handle" on how science progresses.
What Kuhn is trying to say in a polite way is that the majority of scientists are sheeple who follow what they were taught in college and never bother to ask questions.
That's the "peaceful interlude". The reason that innovations or revolutions occur is because every so often you get a Newton or Pasteur etc. who challenges everything and replaces it with something superior.
In other words, there's no such thing as progress without people willing to say "wait a minute maybe all this is wrong" type of thing and work out a new theory.
The mule headed jackasses that comprise most scientists like every other field resist it because they're embarrassed they never thought of it until finally any half witted idiot has to admit that the new theory is more correct.
Have you ever heard the saying, "Colleges hate genius"? What he pointed out was that it wasn't only the lack or supply of innovators, it was RESISTANCE on the part of the establishment that made science was it is. What's funny is that when someone like Galileo says there's a conspiracy to block his work and findings, HE'S RIGHT.
Here's a little about the new Nobel Prize winner in physics:
"When he was only 21 and a graduate student at Princeton, he and Gross defined the properties of color gluons, which hold atomic nuclei together. "
Just what Kuhn said would happen.
Everyone knows that's how science progresses but Kuhn wrote it down first.
Z
Variable Constant
Funny that the Homeopaths aren't quoting Kuhn at every turn, then.
Cosmo
Radioactive Rationalist
- Joined
- Jul 23, 2004
- Messages
- 1,182
My biggest problem with Kuhn's theories is his lack of endorsement of Correspondence theory.
For those of you who aren't sure to what I'm referring, correspondence theory is a theory that states there is a way the universe actually "is" - its processes, behaviors, and so forth actually "are" a certain way. Therefore, any scientific theory we (humans) propose can be evaluated based upon how well the theory seems to explain a given natural behavior.
For example, Aristotle proposed a (by our perspective) primitive theory of basic physics. This survived for many hundreds of years until Newton came along and proposed a theory that seemed to better explain how the world actually "is", and we operated on his ideas until Einstein offered an even better explanation of physics. That's not to say, of course, that at some point in the future someone will propose a theory that is an even better approximation of the universe than what Einstein proposed.
I'm a firm endorser of correspondence theory, and Kuhn seemed to support it in some points and deny it at others, at least in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Just my $0.02.
For those of you who aren't sure to what I'm referring, correspondence theory is a theory that states there is a way the universe actually "is" - its processes, behaviors, and so forth actually "are" a certain way. Therefore, any scientific theory we (humans) propose can be evaluated based upon how well the theory seems to explain a given natural behavior.
For example, Aristotle proposed a (by our perspective) primitive theory of basic physics. This survived for many hundreds of years until Newton came along and proposed a theory that seemed to better explain how the world actually "is", and we operated on his ideas until Einstein offered an even better explanation of physics. That's not to say, of course, that at some point in the future someone will propose a theory that is an even better approximation of the universe than what Einstein proposed.
I'm a firm endorser of correspondence theory, and Kuhn seemed to support it in some points and deny it at others, at least in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Just my $0.02.