I’ve seen lots of dissertations. Most of them could be done by any reasonably competent person with the time and resources to conduct the experiment. I collaborated with someone in my department doing one of these. It solved a major open problem, and we got some good papers out of it, but it was in no way creative. On the other hand, I’ve seen a few that changed the way an area was thought about, that really did require a creative spark, and that wasn’t just the next incremental advance over someone else’s work. The people with this kind of creativity are the ones who stand out.
There is creativity in the small ( a clever SDMB post) and creativity in the large (Ulysses.) Surely you don’t consider these the same?
I think both are a part of science, but not what makes science so successful. What makes science successful is its method of testing its conclusions against the world, and continually adjusting them as more data comes in. Greek science can be seen as aiming a rocket to Mars. You aim, do wonderfully complex calculations, and then shoot. Our science is like that rocket using midcourse corrections to get to Mars. Which do you think is more likely to hit the target?
I’m no philosopher of science, but I think that your observation is commonly used as a good example of the weakness of Kuhn’s thesis - namely that paradigm shifts are by definition incommensurate. This is rarely the case in actuality, as can be appreciated in your example - Newton’s system of the world sits comfortably alongside Einstein’s, modern physics simply appreciates the limitations and applicability of each. One did not displace the other in a crisis of paradigm shifting.
Kuhn’s signature work *was *written fifty years ago - clearly a very influential text, but maybe one that has been superceded by more relevant commentary? The field of the philospohpy of science is surely no more immune to ‘normal, puzzle-solving philosophy’ than that of ‘normal science’ - I suspect that there may be a more revolutionary philosophy you can draw from, coberst.
Kuhn’s use of the word ‘puzzle’ speaks of a man embittered by failure to achieve tenure - those damn puzzle solvers!!
I’m not getting the point of this quote, nor your general point, nor, indeed, your (or Kuhn’s) general angle and tone on this topic.
What does the above quote mean?
When Kuhn writes, *“one of the reasons why normal science seems to progress so rapidly …," * is he saying that it DOES progress rapidly, or that it, in fact, does NOT—it only SEEMS to do so?
And again with:* "its practitioners concentrate on problems that only their own lack of ingenuity should keep them from solving.”* Is this criticism or praise?
And if it’s praise, is he saying that these people know their limits, and don’t waste time thinking about crazy, big-picture stuff, but instead work on the small problem that’s within their vision … and, very quickly, all of those small efforts accumulate into some significant progress?
For an old fart, I should hope you would be able to arrange and communicate your thoughts more clearly than us thirtysomething whippersnappers.
Margaret Masterman has written the essay “The Nature of a Paradigm” for inclusion in the book “Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge”.
Her conclusions are: “as historians, however much we may cavil at Kuhn’s conclusions in detail, we are not going to be able to go back to where we were before Kuhn and his immediate predecessors began to get at us”.
The history of science, by its nature as part of the history of ideas, has got to be a discipline which helps actual scientists to get a deeper insight into the real nature of their science…So, if we retreat from all consideration of Kuhn’s ‘new image’ of science, we run the risk of totally disconnecting the new- style realistic history of science from its old-style philosophy: a disaster.”
Like many words ‘science’ has more than one meaning and this can be misleading. We commonly use the word to mean—systemized study of technology and its associated phenomena. The word has a more general meaning—systematized study of any domain of knowledge. I think that this distinction needs to be kept in mind.
The author notes that all “real science is normally a habit-governed, puzzle-solving activity” and not a philosophical activity. Paradigm and not hypothesis is the active meaning for the ‘new image of science’. Paradigm is neither a theory nor a metaphysical viewpoint.
Kuhn’s new image of science—the paradigm—is an artifact (a human achievement), a way of seeing, and is a set of scientific problem solving habits. Normal science means research based upon one or more past achievements ‘that some particular community acknowledges for a time as supplying the foundation for its further practice…and these achievements are sufficiently unprecedented to attract an enduring group pf adherents away from competing modes of scientific activity’ furthermore they are sufficiently open-ended to leave all sorts of problems for the redefined group of practitioners to solve’. Such achievements Kuhn defines as paradigm.
“A puzzle-solving paradigm, unlike a puzzle-solving hypothetico-deductive system, has also got to be a concrete ‘way of seeing’.”
Kuhn constantly refers to the ‘gestalt switch’ when discussing the switch in reference from one paradigm to another as ‘re-seeing’ action. Each paradigm has been constructed to be a ‘way-of-seeing’. Here Kuhn is speaking not about what the paradigm is but how the paradigm is used. He is defining a paradigm as a newly developed puzzle-solving artifact that is used analogically to understand another artifact; for example, using wire and beads strung together to facilitate understanding the protein molecule.
To understand Kuhn I must understand what is “an organized puzzle-solving gestalt, which is itself a ‘picture’ of something, A, if it is then to be applied, non-obviously, to provide a new way of seeing something else, B.”
Coming from a scientist, that is a very provocative and intriguing statement that is, axiomatically, a great debate.
Coming from you, however, it is less interesting. Kuhn makes for an interesting thread, and I thank you for a clearly enunciated, albeit directionless, OP on an important topic. Numerous posts in, though, and I am not seeing you develop a position beyond vague kuhnian sloganeering on whether science is or is not ‘puzzle solving’.
Maybe you just want a cafe soc. chat about the merits of the structure of scientific revolutions?
I’m not saying that we get the truth that comes out. Most likely we don’t. But basically what i’m saying is the result that is got will be the result that is got in the universe when this experiment occurs with all affecting variables taken into affect. It is the true result of that test with those affectors. We don’t get to see it, but nevertheless it exists.
Pretty pointless nitpick, really, since it means nothing in practical terms. But I think it’s worth making.
They’re part of the same continuum. I would argue that the difference is quantitative rather than qualitative.
That said, I’m a bit baffled by the purpose of this thread. Coberst, what point exactly are you trying to make here? That working scientists are too limited by their reliance on existing paradigms? That the nature of science itself should change? That science is inferior to other epistomological systems?
Or is it just “I read this cool book, can has me share it with you”? :dubious: