kuhn

He also claimed that observational data could not provide a foundation

for scientific knowledge. Instead, he insisted that data are pliable and thus

scientists could not unequivocally settle disputes by appealing to data.

He also claimed that scientists were not especially open-minded or critical, as Karl Popper claimed. In fact, Kuhn claimed that scientists are

remarkably uncritical with respect to the accepted theories. Further, he suggested that the education of scientists was dogmatic, never inviting

the student to question the accepted theory. And scientific inquiry, he claimed, was tradition-bound.

No wonder Structure was met with fierce criticism. Kuhn was giving us an account of science very different from the positivists’ account. It

seemed that he was denying every assumption that the positivists made about science.

Summary of Structure of Scientific Revolutions

"... succession of six popes (exemplified the secular spirit of the age by) an excess of venality, amorality, avarice, and ... calamitous power politics. Theirs was a folly of perversity, perhaps the most consequential in Western history ..."

Barbara Tuchman -- March of Folly

The betrayal of trust by religious leaders in the sixteenth century eventually led to widespread rejection of religion in the West, termed “Death of God” by Nietzsche. Symbolically, in 1793, the Christian God was deposed in Paris by the Hebertists and atheistic Reason proclaimed as anti-goddess. Loss of the certainties provided by faith led to a search for alternative certainties, this time to be based on observations and reason. (for more detailed discussion see European History:Lessons for Muslims

“If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.”

~David Hume

Does this passage contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but that which it directs thereto.

Although occasional mistakes were possible, the structure of scientific knowledge was solid, impervious to criticism, and would eventually encompass all conceivable knowledge that human beings could possess. This grand vision permeated the public consciousness, that science would eventually provide a solution to all human problems.

Key ideas:

The Triumph of Science over Religion is portrayed as the triumph of reason over superstition -- however the roots run deeper and the history is quite different.

Theft of History ideas -- combined with Betrayal of Faith -- from March of Folly.

Scientists work within a RECEIVED paradigm -- which has its own built in assumptions, methdologies, frameworks -- these are not subject to question.

The naive viewpoint that one starts from ZERO and builds up using facts and logic -- the quest for certainty. This is wrong

This means that HISTORY matters -- scientists dont discover universal truths. Science is a SOCIAL CONSTRUCT. Communities of scientists need to be studied as creators of truth

Kuhn's 50th Anniversay -- Guardian

Before Kuhn, in other words, we had what amounted to the Whig interpretationof scientific history, in which past researchers, theorists and experimenters had engaged in a long march, if not towards "truth", then at least towards greater and greater understanding of the natural world.

What Kuhn had run up against was the central weakness of the Whig interpretation of history. By the standards of present-day physics, Aristotle looks like an idiot. And yet we know he wasn't. Kuhn's blinding insight came from the sudden realisation that if one is to understand Aristotelian science, one must know about the intellectual tradition within which Aristotle worked. One must understand, for example, that for him the term "motion" meant change in general – not just the change in position of a physical body, which is how we think of it. Or, to put it in more general terms, to understand scientific development one must understand the intellectual frameworks within which scientists work. That insight is the engine that drives Kuhn's great book.

Brad Wray: Kuhn's Evolutionary Social Epistemology -- INTRO: Paradoxes of Kuhn:

To begin with, Kuhn alleged that scientific knowledge was not cumulative. He is famous for drawing our attention to what has come to be called

“Kuhn-loss,” the “knowledge” allegedly lost when one theory replaces another. Yet he adamantly insisted that there is scientific progress.