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Such an unbelievable invention would challenge the laws of physics, a no-no in the rigid world of serious science. The article contains other hints that the sc

by curi 19y ago

Such an unbelievable invention would challenge the laws of physics, a no-no in the rigid world of serious science. The article contains other hints that the scientific community is a bit like the Church a few hundred years ago -- rigidly attached to the status quo. That's an odd thing to claim, considering all the new scientific ideas we've had in the last century.

aristus 19y ago
"Science progresses one funeral at a time." -- Max Planck To be fair, revolutionary scientific advances spend a long time in the heresy box. The most recent I can think of was the bacterial causes of ulcers... took 20 years and some dramatic self-experiments before it was taken seriously enough to confirm. That said, the more extraordinary the claim, the more extraordinary the evidence required.
- curi 19y ago
  I don't see how that's fair. What non-scientific fields are more reasonable than, say, physicists? Scientists may not be perfect. But they have certain standards, which make them better. For example, scientists have a tradition of disregarding the source of an idea and focussing on examining reasons it is correct or not. Edit: BTW it's ironic that Planck would say that. I think it's pretty clear that his own life, not his death, advanced physics.
  - iamwil 19y ago
    He didn't mean his own death, necessarily. But the death of older physicists that founded previous revolution stuck with the old (and wrong) ideas that were against his new (and right) ideas. You'll find that historically, older scientists in prominent positions will be adamant against an uprising revolution in his field. If he/she wields enough power in academia, he'll crush it...at least delay it for a while, until he dies. Newton was rather notorious for this sort of stuff. He held some high position(forgot what it was called) in academia and made it difficult for lots of other younger scientists that came after while he was in power.
    - curi 19y ago
      He didn't mean his own death, necessarily Let's consider these claims: - science progresses via funerals of all scientists - science progresses via funerals of Planck's ideological opponents Only the first one can pass for a serious theory of scientific progress. But only the second one gets to exclude his own death.
      - iamwil 19y ago
        In reality, the first is true, even for Planck. He'd be a fool not to realize it too. I didn't mean to say Planck's right forever. Phrased another way, I don't think his point in saying how science progresses by funerals is to point to his own death. It was to highlight the misconception that most people have that current science theories come to prominence in science because the revolutionaries changed the minds of the old guard through proofs and experimentation. Rather, proof and experimentation changed the minds of young revolutionaries, and only when old guards die off, the revolutionaries rise to take their place and make prominent the new theory.
- mechanical_fish 19y ago
  To be fair, revolutionary scientific advances spend a long time in the heresy box. Sample bias. If a revolutionary advance wins converts relatively quickly via overwhelming evidence (the invention of the transistor, high Tc superconductivity, the discovery of extrasolar planets, siRNA, mammalian cloning, stem cells...) everyone is astonished for a while, but then they get used to it. But if an advance is so subtle or difficult to measure that it takes 20 years to catch on, we are doomed to hear about that incident, over and over, from every crackpot in the world for the next hundred years. If Galileo's estate could collect a nickel from every perpetual-motion inventor who has invoked his name, they would own Italy and be bidding on the rest of the E.U.
- ced 19y ago
  The Nature of Scientific Revolutions develops that idea a lot more, for anyone interested.
  - curi 19y ago
    That book is mistaken (it goes so far as to deny the possibility of scientific progress), see instead The Fabric of Reality which comments on Kuhn and provides a better theory. http://www.amazon.com/Fabric-Reality-Parallel-Universes-Implications/dp/014027541X/ http://www.amazon.com/Fabric-Reality-Parallel-Universes-Impl... Edit: btw you got the title wrong.
    - wallflower 19y ago
      We had to read portions of Kuhn's book in college. Dense reading. Ever hear the phrase "paradigm shift"? He's responsible for launching that into our mindspheres. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradigm_shift http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradigm_shift
    - ced 19y ago
      Right, it's the Structure of scientific revolutions. How is the book mistaken? Did you read it? Can you condense what you think is wrong? I don't think he denies scientific progress. He addressed that point in the post-scriptum, if I remember correctly.
      - curi 19y ago
        Page 160 (start of chapter 13): "The preceding pages have carried my schematic description of scientific development as far as it can go in this essay. Nevertheless, they cannot quite provide a conclusion. If this description has at all caught the essential structure of a science's continuing evolution, it will simultaneously have posed a special problem: Why should the enterprise sketched above move steadily ahead in ways that, say, art, political theory, or philosophy does not? Why is progress a perquisite reserved almost exclusively for activities we call science? The most usual answers to that question have been denied in the body of this essay. We must conclude it by asking what substitutes can be found." Page 162: "Viewed from within any single community, however, whether of scientists or of non-scientists, the result of successful creative work is progress." 163: "These doubts about progress arise, however, in the sciences too. Throughout the pre-paradigm period when there is a multiplicity of competing schools, evidence of progress, except within schools, is very hard to find." "part of the answer to the problem of progress lies simply in the eye of the beholder." ------- He also manages to compare scientists to characters form 1984, and claim that we choose which fields to call science based on which ones appear to make progress, so science seems to achieve progress in part through a selection effect. So, he takes it for granted that we don't make progress in a variety of fields. He attacks scientific progress as subjective -- a matter of biased points of view. He has doubts about progress in general which extend to science. Part of the answer, he says, is that science doesn't actually make progress. And, he says, the last 12 chapters denied the common sense views on why and how science makes progress, and he hopes to come up with a substitute, but he isn't even trying very hard (because he doesn't really believe in progress very much, in general). OK, I read some Kuhn for you. shudder. Someone go read Fabric of Reality now :) It is full of good explanations.
gruseom 19y ago
The article contains other hints that the scientific community is a bit like the Church a few hundred years ago -- rigidly attached to the status quo. That's an odd thing to claim Really? The tone of certainty in several comments on this page lends credence to it. It's difficult to recognize one's own dogmatism.
- curi 19y ago
  Fine, it's false. If scientists acted like the Church, we'd have made about as much progress in science as religion. The reason science is able to find truer explanations is that scientists in fact look for them, rather than musing on how to enforce strictly conservative attitudes. If you deny this, you've unexplained something. Kuhn, and you, have not offered a replacement.

by curi 19y ago

aristus 19y ago

"Science progresses one funeral at a time." -- Max Planck To be fair, revolutionary scientific advances spend a long time in the heresy box. The most recent I can think of was the bacterial causes of ulcers... took 20 years and some dramatic self-experiments before it was taken seriously enough to confirm. That said, the more extraordinary the claim, the more extraordinary the evidence required.

curi 19y ago
I don't see how that's fair. What non-scientific fields are more reasonable than, say, physicists? Scientists may not be perfect. But they have certain standards, which make them better. For example, scientists have a tradition of disregarding the source of an idea and focussing on examining reasons it is correct or not. Edit: BTW it's ironic that Planck would say that. I think it's pretty clear that his own life, not his death, advanced physics.
- iamwil 19y ago
  He didn't mean his own death, necessarily. But the death of older physicists that founded previous revolution stuck with the old (and wrong) ideas that were against his new (and right) ideas. You'll find that historically, older scientists in prominent positions will be adamant against an uprising revolution in his field. If he/she wields enough power in academia, he'll crush it...at least delay it for a while, until he dies. Newton was rather notorious for this sort of stuff. He held some high position(forgot what it was called) in academia and made it difficult for lots of other younger scientists that came after while he was in power.
  - curi 19y ago
    He didn't mean his own death, necessarily Let's consider these claims: - science progresses via funerals of all scientists - science progresses via funerals of Planck's ideological opponents Only the first one can pass for a serious theory of scientific progress. But only the second one gets to exclude his own death.
    - iamwil 19y ago
      In reality, the first is true, even for Planck. He'd be a fool not to realize it too. I didn't mean to say Planck's right forever. Phrased another way, I don't think his point in saying how science progresses by funerals is to point to his own death. It was to highlight the misconception that most people have that current science theories come to prominence in science because the revolutionaries changed the minds of the old guard through proofs and experimentation. Rather, proof and experimentation changed the minds of young revolutionaries, and only when old guards die off, the revolutionaries rise to take their place and make prominent the new theory.
mechanical_fish 19y ago
To be fair, revolutionary scientific advances spend a long time in the heresy box. Sample bias. If a revolutionary advance wins converts relatively quickly via overwhelming evidence (the invention of the transistor, high Tc superconductivity, the discovery of extrasolar planets, siRNA, mammalian cloning, stem cells...) everyone is astonished for a while, but then they get used to it. But if an advance is so subtle or difficult to measure that it takes 20 years to catch on, we are doomed to hear about that incident, over and over, from every crackpot in the world for the next hundred years. If Galileo's estate could collect a nickel from every perpetual-motion inventor who has invoked his name, they would own Italy and be bidding on the rest of the E.U.
ced 19y ago
The Nature of Scientific Revolutions develops that idea a lot more, for anyone interested.
- curi 19y ago
  That book is mistaken (it goes so far as to deny the possibility of scientific progress), see instead The Fabric of Reality which comments on Kuhn and provides a better theory. http://www.amazon.com/Fabric-Reality-Parallel-Universes-Implications/dp/014027541X/ http://www.amazon.com/Fabric-Reality-Parallel-Universes-Impl... Edit: btw you got the title wrong.
  - wallflower 19y ago
    We had to read portions of Kuhn's book in college. Dense reading. Ever hear the phrase "paradigm shift"? He's responsible for launching that into our mindspheres. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradigm_shift http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradigm_shift
  - ced 19y ago
    Right, it's the Structure of scientific revolutions. How is the book mistaken? Did you read it? Can you condense what you think is wrong? I don't think he denies scientific progress. He addressed that point in the post-scriptum, if I remember correctly.
    - curi 19y ago
      Page 160 (start of chapter 13): "The preceding pages have carried my schematic description of scientific development as far as it can go in this essay. Nevertheless, they cannot quite provide a conclusion. If this description has at all caught the essential structure of a science's continuing evolution, it will simultaneously have posed a special problem: Why should the enterprise sketched above move steadily ahead in ways that, say, art, political theory, or philosophy does not? Why is progress a perquisite reserved almost exclusively for activities we call science? The most usual answers to that question have been denied in the body of this essay. We must conclude it by asking what substitutes can be found." Page 162: "Viewed from within any single community, however, whether of scientists or of non-scientists, the result of successful creative work is progress." 163: "These doubts about progress arise, however, in the sciences too. Throughout the pre-paradigm period when there is a multiplicity of competing schools, evidence of progress, except within schools, is very hard to find." "part of the answer to the problem of progress lies simply in the eye of the beholder." ------- He also manages to compare scientists to characters form 1984, and claim that we choose which fields to call science based on which ones appear to make progress, so science seems to achieve progress in part through a selection effect. So, he takes it for granted that we don't make progress in a variety of fields. He attacks scientific progress as subjective -- a matter of biased points of view. He has doubts about progress in general which extend to science. Part of the answer, he says, is that science doesn't actually make progress. And, he says, the last 12 chapters denied the common sense views on why and how science makes progress, and he hopes to come up with a substitute, but he isn't even trying very hard (because he doesn't really believe in progress very much, in general). OK, I read some Kuhn for you. shudder. Someone go read Fabric of Reality now :) It is full of good explanations.

gruseom 19y ago

The article contains other hints that the scientific community is a bit like the Church a few hundred years ago -- rigidly attached to the status quo. That's an odd thing to claim Really? The tone of certainty in several comments on this page lends credence to it. It's difficult to recognize one's own dogmatism.

curi 19y ago
Fine, it's false. If scientists acted like the Church, we'd have made about as much progress in science as religion. The reason science is able to find truer explanations is that scientists in fact look for them, rather than musing on how to enforce strictly conservative attitudes. If you deny this, you've unexplained something. Kuhn, and you, have not offered a replacement.