4 ms·

Isn't Kuhn's theory just part of an outdated meta-scientific paradigm?

robg 16y ago
Even as my sarcasm meter is ringing: Kuhn got there first, so he'll linger. Everyone else is stuck trying to determine what it all means.
Stormbringer 16y ago
I see you're just making a joke, but to treat what you said seriously, I think that the main complaint against Kuhn is that in practice actual science works quite differently from how he describes it. So yes, Kuhn's ideas represent an idealized view of what science (perhaps) should be, and as such are interesting to the same small group of people as find Plato's notion of shadows on the cave to be interesting. I.e. theory of knowledge or theory of science people, as compared to say actual scientists.
- kijinbear 16y ago
  I don't think Kuhn was trying to show what ideal science "should be". His project was first and foremost descriptive. He was reacting against the likes of Popper's view on what science is (and should be): namely, falsificationism. Kuhn argued that falsification is not how science normally works, despite the fact that actual scientists think it does. (He actually spends a whole chapter discussing why he thinks scientists make this mistake.) Kuhn's work inspired the Edinburgh school of sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK), which until recently has remained quite heavy on the descriptive side.
- robg 16y ago
  I'm not so sure it's that different than he described. It's certainly messier, but he didn't have access to the same volume of data we do now. On a grand, generation scale, I think he got it exactly right. You see it in the published record if you know a field well - the slow shifts with the seminal works standing out and pushing the field along...and still taking a decade or more to be widely received. Science is slow. My area - neuroimaging - has been around for 20 years and yet we're still struggling to make sense of the data. The major changes take 5 to 10 years to sink in. Not surprisingly, that's also how it takes to train a new generation.

robg 16y ago

Even as my sarcasm meter is ringing: Kuhn got there first, so he'll linger. Everyone else is stuck trying to determine what it all means.

Stormbringer 16y ago

I see you're just making a joke, but to treat what you said seriously, I think that the main complaint against Kuhn is that in practice actual science works quite differently from how he describes it. So yes, Kuhn's ideas represent an idealized view of what science (perhaps) should be, and as such are interesting to the same small group of people as find Plato's notion of shadows on the cave to be interesting. I.e. theory of knowledge or theory of science people, as compared to say actual scientists.

kijinbear 16y ago
I don't think Kuhn was trying to show what ideal science "should be". His project was first and foremost descriptive. He was reacting against the likes of Popper's view on what science is (and should be): namely, falsificationism. Kuhn argued that falsification is not how science normally works, despite the fact that actual scientists think it does. (He actually spends a whole chapter discussing why he thinks scientists make this mistake.) Kuhn's work inspired the Edinburgh school of sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK), which until recently has remained quite heavy on the descriptive side.
robg 16y ago
I'm not so sure it's that different than he described. It's certainly messier, but he didn't have access to the same volume of data we do now. On a grand, generation scale, I think he got it exactly right. You see it in the published record if you know a field well - the slow shifts with the seminal works standing out and pushing the field along...and still taking a decade or more to be widely received. Science is slow. My area - neuroimaging - has been around for 20 years and yet we're still struggling to make sense of the data. The major changes take 5 to 10 years to sink in. Not surprisingly, that's also how it takes to train a new generation.