Author: leonid
Date: 09:54:36 11/08/00
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On November 08, 2000 at 11:23:04, Mogens Larsen wrote: >On November 08, 2000 at 11:02:54, Joe Besogn wrote: > >Chris, > >Wouldn't it be easier to post a link or quote references instead of copying the >text on the backcover? And you've already posted something similar once before. Never mind! I found this message very interesting. Since I don't remember previous one, I expect to find the reactions from other readers to the last one. It will one of those very deep and sharp echanges that is so curious to read! Leonid. >Besides, development in revolutionary spasms is hardly a novelty. It's been a >part of the theory of evolution for decades. > >Mogens. > >>Kuhn concluded early that the conventional textbooks on the history of science >>were simply wrong, not so much about facts as about processes and sequences. No >>science primarily develops in steady, small increments — tiny accruals of fact. >>Science develops in revolutionary spasms, with periods of consolidation between. >>Both before and after revolutionary changes, any given discipline has >>overarching theories, some models, favorite metaphors, systems of symbolization. >>These ways of thinking — Kuhn called them together paradigms — not only define >>the discipline but can be used to explain most of the phenomena in which the >>discipline is interested, as did Ptolemaic astronomy or the phlogiston theory. >> >>Most "normal science" is not engaged in radical innovations, lonely and heroic >>explorations of the unknown. Most normal scientists work with the puzzles for >>which the contemporary paradigm is applicable. Those puzzles for which the >>paradigm does not apply are typically ignored or even denied to exist. But >>sometimes these anomalies of explanation cannot be denied, either for pressing >>general reasons (in which case several people are apt to create a new paradigm >>almost simultaneously) or because some atypical scientist finds the climate >>right for the acceptance of his ideas. Then a new paradigm is created, a new >>system of thought, which explains more phenomena more parsimoniously and >>elegantly. Often, Kuhn tells us, there ensues a battle between the >>conservatives, the adherents to the old paradigm, and devotees of the new ways >>of thinking. When one side or the other wins, they can return to their more >>peaceful puzzle laboratories. >> >>A new paradigm amounts to seeing the theoretical structure of a scientific >>discipline in some new and useful way. The effect, if innovation takes hold, is >>revolutionary. If the revolution is a large one, the effector or effectors are >>often dubbed geniuses, and previous geniuses become denigrated.
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