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I think you give "science" too much credit. "Structure of Scientific Revolutions" and all that. In an abstract sense, yes, everything in science is subject to c
by pc2g4d 11y ago
I think you give "science" too much credit. "Structure of Scientific Revolutions" and all that. In an abstract sense, yes, everything in science is subject to criticism and reevaluation. But in a human sense, entire fields are dominated for decades by strong personalities whose theories aren't necessarily stronger but have greater social support. I present to you Noam Chomsky re: linguistics as a prime example.
Surely I oversimplify, but I think it's important to acknowledge the human factor in what passes as scientific consensus in a field at any given time.
- nxzero 11y ago"Why Most Published Research Findings Are False" which has been cited over 3000 times covers this topic: http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124 http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/jou...
- Retric 11y agoDominate theories are not necessarily accepted as consensus. It can be hard to notice outside of the field but Noam Chomsky had far less support inside linguistics than you might think. It's a classic case where it's hard to pickup most people saying 'I have no idea', when there is a lot of talk about theory x. PS: The counter argument was simply children get feedback while learning a language. Mute children have a much harder time picking up their native language so it's not a passive process.