The Three E's : Evidence, Evolution, and, um, Eggs (Page 3) thetrollishere: part two of my paraphrased rant shall continue after I get at least 6 hours of sleep, good night for now my fellow pot stirrer. thetrollishere: they are technically not rodents because they have two sets of incisors as opposed to rodents who only have one. ..yes I'm a lagomorph owner thetrollishere: ok something that I find very interesting is the evolution of sweat glands ...Rabbits don't have sweat glands. this topic will continue after I get 5 hours and 45 min of sleep (or less)  CoIin: thetrollishere   A few words in response to your tragically curtailed preamble. Firstly, thanks for the interest; I'll be looking forward to any insights you can bring to the thread. I believe I can, and already have, backed up all the claims made thus far, but I'll happily withdraw any objectionable assertions if you can demonstrate this not to be the case, and thank you to boot for rendering me a little wiser. The scurrilous "pot-stirrer" allegation (  ) makes me a little uneasy though, so a brief explication is in order, I think. The purpose of this thread, and all my other threads, is not gratuitious troublemaking, but rather self-learning, education, and above all, to make people THINK! If "stirring the pot" means provoking thought with a view to amelioration, then so be it, I stand guilty as charged. A background in science, we are told, confers upon the recipient a proclivity for autonomous, critical thought - not like these gullible religious dolts! Well, if my own experience here in Wireclub forums is anything to go by, with one or two notable exceptions, precisely the opposite is suggested. Time and time again I see an egregious lack of analytical thinking and a blind, uncritical acceptance of anything read or heard from a "reliable source", i.e., a science textbook, the Discovery Channel, Wikipedia, Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking, or Richard Dawkins. (And you know how I feel about HIM.  )Just this very morning in a particular religious thread, I was informed rather sanguinely, "Christians don't kill people", a claim of such stupefying and manifest falsity that one can only marvel at the powers of inculcation active in bringing about a delusion of this magnitude. But we would expect no more from those brainwashed religious types, right? Someone with scientific predilections would never make such a patently preposterous claim. Right? Think again, dahlin' Let me illustrate with a few examples of actual claims I've heard made here in Wireclub from members I know to be otherwise intelligent, sensible people. With the exception of (5) I'm paraphrasing from memory... (1). The good thing about science is that if you're skeptical of what you're told, you can repeat the experiments at home for yourself. (2). 97% (or whatever) of scientists can't be wrong. (3). There is no real evidence against the theory of evolution. (4). Scientists propose hypotheses and then do their best to destroy them. (5). It's pretty sad that some people don't need scientific peer review to tell them whether or not what they see is real or a figment of their own imaginations. (quoted verbatim) (6). Scientists DEDUCE their theories from observational evidence (i.e. facts) Now, once again, these claims are not just false. They are manifestly false. They are FABULOUSLY false. They are RIGHT-IN-YER-FACE false. A few seconds' reflection would surely reveal their falsity to the claimant. And this is precisely what has not happened! What HAS happened instead is that in each case, the person involved has heard or read (and I have too) these absurdities in a "reliable source", committed them to memory obediently and unquestioningly and WITHOUT A TRACE OF CRITICAL ANALYSIS, never for one moment stopping to ask "Is this really plausible?" And that ain't good, folks.  THAT'S why we're here. Here I stand. I can do no other, so help me God. Amen.  (Edited by CoIin) thetrollishere: and I completely agree with your point on the "lack of analytical thinking with the reliable sources"...especially Wikipedia! ( a horrid source) thetrollishere: and no repetition does not necessarily mean it is apart of the "evolving process". What I meant was, our ideas are tuned and sharpened with experience. CoIin: "... science students are distressingly willing to receive the word from professors and texts." - Thomas Kuhn CoIin: In the post below this one I'll reproduce in its entirety an essay written by philosopher of science Larry Laudan (yes, him again) subsequent to the 1981 McLean v. Arkansas Supreme Court's ruling that Creation-Science is unscientific and thus must not be taught in classrooms. Laudan is scathing. The right verdict was arrived at for all the wrong reasons, he claims. And he'll explain why. I'll add some comments of my own at appropriate junctures highlighting issues particulary relevant to this thread and addressing comments made above by Thetrollishere. CoIin: "Science at the Bar—Causes for Concern”- Larry Laudan In the wake of the decision in the Arkansas Creationism trial (McLean v Arkansas),1 the friends of science are apt to be relishing the outcome. The creationists quite clearly made a botch of their case and there can be little doubt that the Arkansas decision may, at least for a time, blunt legislative pressure to enact similar laws in other states. Once the dust has settled, however, the trial in general and Judge William R. Overton's ruling in particular may come back to haunt us; for, although the verdict itself is probably to be commended, it was reached for all the wrong reasons and by a chain of argument which is hopelessly suspect. Indeed, the ruling rests on a host of misrepresentations of what science is and how it works. The heart of Judge Overton's Opinion is a formulation of "the essential characteristics of science. These characteristics serve as touchstones for contrasting evolutionary theory with Creationism; they lead Judge Overton ultimately to the claim, specious in its own right, that since Creationism is not "science," it must be religion. The Opinion offers five essential properties that demarcate scientific knowledge from other things: "(1) It is guided by natural law; (2) it has to be explanatory by reference to natural law; (3) it is testable against the empirical world; (4) its conclusions are tentative, i.e., are not necessarily the final word; and (5) it is falsifiable." These fall naturally into families: properties (1) and (2) have to do with law-likeness and explanatory ability; the other three properties have to do with the fallibility and testability of scientific claims. I shall deal with the second set of issues first; because it is there that the most egregious errors of fact and judgment are to be found. At various key points in the Opinion, Creationism is charged with being untestable, dogmatic (and thus non-tentative), and unfalsifiable. All three charges are of dubious merit. For instance, to make the interlinked claims that Creationism is neither falsifiable nor testable is to assert that Creationism makes no empirical assertions whatever. That is surely false. Creationists make a wide range of testable assertions about empirical matters of fact. Thus, as Judge Overton himself grants (apparently without seeing its implications), the creationists say that the earth is of very recent origin (say 6,000 to 20,000 years old); they argue that most of the geological features of the earth's surface are diluvial in character (i.e., products of the postulated Noachian deluge); they are committed to a large number of factual historical claims with which the Old Testament is replete; they assert the limited variability of species. They are committed to the view that, since animals and man were created at the same time, the human fossil record must be paleontologically co-extensive with the record of lower animals. It is fair to say that no one has shown how to reconcile such claims with the available evidence—evidence which speaks persuasively to a long earth history, among other things. In brief, these claims are testable, they have been tested, and they have failed those tests. Unfortunately, the logic of the Opinion's analysis precludes saying any of the above. By arguing that the tenets of Creationism are neither testable nor falsifiable, Judge Overton (like those scientists who similarly charge Creationism with being untestable) deprives science of its strongest argument against Creationism. Indeed, if any doctrine in the history of science has ever been falsified, it is the set of claims associated with "creation-science." Asserting that Creationism makes no empirical claims plays directly, if inadvertently, into the hands of the creationists by immunizing their ideology from empirical confrontation. The correct way to combat Creationism is to confute the empirical claims it does make, not to pretend that it makes no such claims at all. It is true, of course, that some tenets of Creationism are not testable in isolation (e.g., the claim that man emerged by a direct supernatural act of creation). But that scarcely makes Creationism "unscientific." It is now widely acknowledged that many scientific claims are not testable in isolation, but only when embedded in a larger system of statements, some of whose consequences can be submitted to test. [Colin's note : Laudan alludes here to the Duhem-Quine thesis, the reason why definitive falsifications are impossible in science. That precambrian rabbit would NOT constitute a logical refutation of evolutionary theory.] Judge Overton's third worry about Creationism centers on the issue of revisability. Over and over again, he finds Creationism and its advocates "unscientific" because they have "refuse[d] to change it regardless of the evidence developed during the course of their investigation." In point of fact, the charge is mistaken. If the claims of modern-day creationists are compared with those of their nineteenth-century counterparts, significant shifts orientation and assertion are evident. One of the most visible opponents of Creationism, Stephen Gould, concedes that creationists have modified their views about the amount of variability allowed at the level of species change. Creationists do, in short, change their minds from time to time. Doubtless they would credit these shifts to their efforts to adjust their views to newly emerging evidence, in what they imagine to be a scientifically respectable way. Perhaps what Judge Overton had in mind was the fact that some of Creationism's core assumptions (e.g., that there was a Noachian flood, that man did not evolve from lower animals, or that God created the world) seem closed off from any serious modification. But historical and sociological researches on science strongly suggest that the scientists of any epoch likewise regard some of their beliefs as so fundamental as not to be open to repudiation or negotiation. Would Newton, for instance, have been tentative about the claim that there were forces in the world? Are quantum mechanicians willing to contemplate giving up the uncertainty relation? Are physicists willing to specify circumstances under which they would give up energy conservation? Numerous historians and philosophers of science (e.g., Kuhn, Mitroff, Feyerabend, and Lakatos) have documented the existence of a certain degree of dogmatism about core commitments in scientific research and have argued that such dogmatism plays a constructive role in promoting the aims of science. I am not denying that there may be subtle but important differences between the dogmatism of scientists and that exhibited by many creationists; but one does not even begin to get at those differences by pretending that science is characterized by an uncompromising open-mindedness. [Colin's note : after reading the above paragraph, consider Thetrollishere's comment on page 2 "I think real scientists are humble enough to accept their ideas can be refuted and are in fact wrong."] Even worse, the ad hominem charge of dogmatism against Creationism egregiously confuses doctrines with the proponents of those doctrines. Since no law mandates that creationists should be invited into the classroom, it is quite irrelevant whether they themselves are close-minded. The Arkansas statute proposed that Creationism be taught, not that creationists should teach it. What counts is the epistemic status of Creationism, not the cognitive idiosyncrasies of the creationists. Because many of the theses of Creationism are testable, the mind set of creationists has no bearing in law or in fact on the merits of Creationism. What about the other pair of essential characteristics which the McLean Opinion cites, namely, that science is a matter of natural law and explainable by natural law? I find the formulation in the Opinion to be rather fuzzy, but the general idea appears to be that it is inappropriate and unscientific to postulate the existence of any process or fact which cannot be explained in terms of some known scientific laws— for instance, me creationistsassertion that there are outer limits to the change of species "cannot be explained by natural law." Earlier in the Opinion, Judge Overton also writes, "there is no scientific explanation for these limits which is guided by natural law," and thus concludes that such limits are unscientific. Still later, remarking on the hypothesis of the Noachian flood, he says: "A worldwide flood as an explanation of the world's geology is not the product of natural law, nor can its occurrence be explained by natural law." Quite how Judge Overton knows that a worldwide flood "cannot" be explained by the laws of science is left opaque; and even if we did not know how to reduce a universal flood to the familiar laws of physics, this requirement is an altogether inappropriate standard for ascertaining whether a claim is scientific. For centuries scientists have recognized a difference between establishing the existence of a phenomenon and explaining that phenomenon in a law-like way. Our ultimate goal, no doubt, is to do both. But to suggest, as the McLean Opinion does repeatedly, that an existence claim (e.g., there was a worldwide flood) is unscientific until we have found the laws on which the alleged phenomenon depends is simply outrageous. Galileo and Newton took themselves to have established the existence of gravitational phenomena, long before anyone was able to give a causal or explanatory account of gravitation. Darwin took himself to have established the existence of natural selection almost a half-century before geneticists were able to lay out the laws of heredity on which natural selection depended. If we took the McLean Opinion criterion seriously, we should have to say that Newton and Darwin were unscientific; and, to take an example from our own time, it would follow that plate tectonics is unscientific because we have not yet identified the laws of physics and chemistry which account for the dynamics of crustal motion. The real objection to such creationist claims as that of the (relative) invariability of species is not that such invariability has not been explained by scientific laws, but rather that the evidence for invariability is less robust than the evidence for its contrary, variability. But to say as much requires renunciation of the Opinion's other charge—to wit, that Creationism is not testable. I could continue with this tale of woeful fallacies in the Arkansas ruling, but that is hardly necessary. What is worrisome is that the Opinion's line of reasoning—which neatly coincides with the predominant tactic among scientists who have entered the public fray on this issue—leaves many loopholes for the creationists to exploit. As numerous authors have shown, the requirements of testability, revisability, and falsifiability are exceedingly weak requirements. Leaving aside the fact that (as I pointed out above) it can be argued that Creationism already satisfies these requirements, it would be easy for a creationist to say the following: "I will abandon my views if we find a living specimen of a species intermediate between man and apes." It is, of course, extremely unlikely that such an individual will be discovered. But, in that statement the creationist would satisfy, in one fell swoop, all the formal requirements of testability, falsifiability, and revisability. If we set very weak standards for scientific status—and, let there be no mistake, I believe that all of the Opinion's last three criteria fall in this category—then it will be quite simple for Creationism to qualify as "scientific." [Colin's note : cf Dawkins' et al invocation of a Precambrian rabbit as proof of the testability/falsifiability of modern evolutionary theory. Compare with above "It is, of course, extremely unlikely that such an individual will be discovered."] Rather than taking on the creationists obliquely in wholesale fashion by suggesting that what they are doing is "unscientific" tout court (which is doubly silly because few authors can even agree on what makes an activity scientific), we should confront their claims directly and in piecemeal fashion by asking what evidence and arguments can be marshaled for and against each of them. The core issue is not whether Creationism satisfies some undemanding and highly controversial definitions of what is scientific; the real question is whether the existing evidence provides stronger arguments for evolutionary theory than for Creationism. Once that question is settled, we will know what belongs in the classroom and what does not. Debating the scientific status of Creationism (especially when "science" is construed in such an unfortunate manner) is a red herring that diverts attention away from the issues that should concern us. Some defenders of the scientific orthodoxy will probably say that my reservations are just nit-picking ones, and that—at least to a first order of approximation—Judge Overton has correctly identified what is fishy about Creationism. The apologists for science, such as the editor of The Skeptical Inquirer, have already objected to those who criticize this whitewash of science "on arcane, semantic grounds . . . [drawn] from the most remote reaches of the academic philosophy of science."2 But let us be clear about what is at stake. In setting out in the McLean Opinion to characterize the "essential" nature of science, Judge Overton was explicitly venturing into philosophical terrain. His obiter dicta are about as remote from well-founded opinion in the philosophy of science as Creationism is from respectable geology. It simply will not do for the defenders of science to invoke philosophy of science when it suits them (e.g., their much-loved principle of falsifiability comes directly from the philosopher Karl Popper) and to dismiss it as "arcane" and "remote" when it does not. However noble the motivation, bad philosophy makes for bad law. The victory in the Arkansas case was hollow, for it was achieved only at the expense of perpetuating and canonizing a false stereotype of what science is and how it works. If it goes unchallenged by the scientific community, it will raise grave doubts about that community's intellectual integrity. No one familiar with the issues can really believe that anything important was settled through anachronistic efforts to revive a variety of discredited criteria for distinguishing between the scientific and the non-scientific. Fifty years ago, Clarence Darrow asked, a propos of the Scopes trial, "Isn't it difficult to realize that a trial of this kind is possible in the twentieth century in the United States of America?" We can raise that question anew, with the added irony that, this time, the pro-science forces are defending a philosophy of science which is, in its way, every bit as outmoded as the "science" of the creationists. NOTES 1. McLean v Arkansas Board of Education, 529 F. Supp. 1255 (E.D. Ark. 1982). For the text of the law, the decision, and essays by participants in the trial, see Science, Technology, & Human Values 40 (Summer 1982), and also Marcel LaFollette, Creationism, Science and the Law (The MIT Press, 1983). 2. "The Creationist Threat: Science Finally Awakens." In The Skeptical Inquirer 3 (Spring 1982): 2-5. CoIin: Below I'm going to post a passage from prominent Intelligent Design advocate, and author of "Darwin on Trial", Phillip Johnson. Lest I be torn limb from limb in the agora, let it be known that I am emphatically NOT adding my imprimatur to the I.D. movement, and I do not necessarily endorse all that is said below. The reason I'm reproducing Prof. Johnson's remarks here, rather, is that he evinces an admirable familiarity with writings in the philosophy of science, and in particular the work of Thomas Kuhn, as well as a candour and understanding for the workings of science, far superior to any science apologist I've ever discussed these matters with. While the scientist or science fan has continued to unabashedly propagate vague and antediluvian notions of falsifiability (perhaps with no knowledge of their provenance), apparently blissfully unaware they were discredited decades ago, Prof Johnson has evidently been doing a lot of reading. Good for you, Phillip! I've highlighted in CAPS sections of particular relevance to issues covered earlier in this thread. Quote:- The second feature of scientific naturalism that is important for our purpose is its set of rules governing the criticism and replacement of a paradigm. A paradigm is a general theory, like the Darwinian theory of evolution, which has achieved general acceptance in the scientific community. The paradigm unifies the various specialties that make up the research community, and guides research in all of them. Thus, zoologists, botanists, geneticists, molecular biologists, and paleontologists all see their research as aimed at filling out the details of the Darwinian paradigm. If molecular biologists see a pattern of apparently neutral mutations, which have no apparent effect on an organism's fitness, THEY MUST FIND A WAY TO RECONCILE THEIR FINDINGS WITH THE PARADIGM'S REQUIREMENT that natural selection guides evolution. This they can do by postulating a sufficient quantity of invisible adaptive mutations, which are deemed to be accumulated by natural selection. Similarly, if paleontologists see new fossil species appearing suddenly in the fossil record, and remaining basically unchanged thereafter, THEY MUST PERFORM WHATEVER CONTORTIONS ARE NECESSARY TO FORCE THIS RECALCITRANT EVIDENCE into a model of incremental change through the accumulation of micromutations. Supporting the paradigm may even require what in other contexts would be called deception. As Niles Eldredge candidly admitted, "We paleontologists have said that the history of life supports [the story of gradual adaptive change], all the while knowing it does not."[ 1] Eldredge explained that this pattern of misrepresentation occurred because of "the certainty so characteristic of evolutionary ranks since the late 1940s, the utter assurance not only that natural selection operates in nature, but that we know precisely how it works." This certainty produced a degree of dogmatism that Eldredge says resulted in the relegation to the "lunatic fringe" of paleontologists who reported that "they saw something out of kilter between contemporary evolutionary theory, on the one hand, and patterns of change in the fossil record on the other."[ 2] Under the circumstances, prudent paleontologists understandably swallowed their doubts and supported the ruling ideology. TO ABANDON THE PARADIGM WOULD BE TO ABANDON THE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY; to ignore the paradigm and just gather the facts would be to earn the demeaning label of "stamp collector." As many philosophers of science have observed, THE RESEARCH COMMUNITY DOES NOT ABANDON A PARADIGM IN THE ABSENCE OF A SUITABLE REPLACEMENT. This means that negative criticism of Darwinism, however devastating it may appear to be, is essentially irrelevant to the professional researchers. The critic may point out, for example, that the evidence that natural selection has any creative power is somewhere between weak and non-existent. That is perfectly true, but to Darwinists the more important point is this: If natural selection did not do the creating, what did? "God" is obviously unacceptable, because such a being is unknown to science. "We don't know" is equally unacceptable, because to admit ignorance would be to leave science adrift without a guiding principle. To put the problem in the most practical terms: it is impossible to write or evaluate a grant proposal without a generally accepted theoretical framework. The paradigm rule explains why Gould's acknowledgment that neo-Darwinism is "effectively dead" had no significant effect on the Darwinist faithful, or even on Gould himself. Gould made that statement in a paper predicting the emergence of a new general theory of evolution, one based on the macromutational speculations of the Berkeley geneticist Richard Goldschmidt.[ 3] When the new theory did not arrive as anticipated, the alternatives were either to stick with Ernst Mayr's version of neo-Darwinism, or to concede that biologists do not after all know of a naturalistic mechanism that can produce biological complexity. That was no choice at all. Gould had to beat a hasty retreat back to classical Darwinism to avoid giving aid and comfort to the enemies of scientific naturalism, including those disgusting creationists. Having to defend a dead theory tooth and nail can hardly be a satisfying activity, and it is no wonder that Gould lashes out with fury at people such as myself, who calls attention to his predicament.[ 4] I do not mean to ridicule Gould, however, because I have a genuinely high regard for the man as one of the few Darwinists who has recognized the major problems with the theory and reported them honestly. His tragedy is that he cannot admit the clear implications of his own thought without effectively resigning from science. The continuing survival of Darwinist orthodoxy illustrates Thomas Kuhn's famous point that the accumulation of anomalies never in itself falsifies a paradigm, because "To reject one paradigm without substituting another is to reject science itself."[ 5] This practice may be appropriate as a way of carrying on the professional enterprise called science, but it can be grossly misleading when it is imposed upon persons who are asking questions other than the ones scientific naturalists want to ask. Suppose, for example, that I want to know whether God really had something to do with creating living organisms. A typical Darwinian response is that there is no reason to invoke supernatural action because Darwinian selection was capable of performing the job. To evaluate that response, I need to know whether natural selection really has the fantastic creative power attributed to it. It is not a sufficient answer to say that scientists have nothing better to offer. The fact that scientists don't like to say "we don't know" tells me nothing about what they really do know. I am not suggesting that scientists have to change their rules about retaining and discarding paradigms. All I want them to do is to be candid about the disconfirming evidence and admit, if it is the case, that they are hanging on to Darwinism only because they prefer a shaky theory to having no theory at all. WHAT THEY INSIST UPON DOING, HOWEVER, IS TO PRESENT DARWINIAN EVOLUTION TO THE PUBLIC AS A FACT THAT EVERY RATIONAL PERSON IS EXPECTED TO ACCEPT. If there are reasonable grounds to doubt the theory such dogmatism is ridiculous, whether or not the doubters have a better theory to propose. Unquote (Edited by CoIin) CoIin: “Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous.” - David Hume   (Post deleted by calybonos ) CoIin: Thomas Kuhn's seminal work "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" published in 1962 was something of a revolution itself, refuting through historical analysis the ideas of the logical positivists and Karl Popper, and changing forever the way we understand the scientific enterprise. I'll post below an informative synopsis of Kuhn's magnum opus compiled by Alexander Bird. As always, all CAPS are my own. As you read through, keep our topic at hand -- evolutionary theory -- firmly in mind and ask yourself the following questions:- 1. Does Kuhn's 'paradigm' model accurately describe Darwinian-based evolutionary theory? Does "The Origin of Species" function as an 'exemplar'? 2. In the unlikely event that that dang Precambrian rabbit is actually unearthed, or any other prima facie surprising evidence, what do you think would be the response from the scientific community? Would it constitute a logical refutation of the theory? Is there such a thing? Would scientists REGARD said ossified lagomorph as falsifying evidence and abandon the theory? Or would it be more correctly thought of as what Kuhn calls an "anomaly"? CoIin: Thomas Kuhn (by Alexander Bird) Mounting problems with logical positivism (e.g. Quine’s attack on the analytic–synthetic distinction and Goodman’s new riddle of induction) opened up the opportunity for a rapprochement between history of science and a post-positivist philosophy of science. Leading the way was Thomas Kuhn, whose second book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Kuhn 1962) dominated much of philosophy of science in the last third of the twentieth century. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions may be called “theoretical history,” by which I mean that it does two things that have an analogue in natural science: (i) a descriptive element – it identifies a general pattern in the development of science: science is a puzzle-solving enterprise which shows a cyclical pattern of normal science, crisis, revolution, normal science; (ii) an explanatory element – it proposes an explanation of the pattern identified in (i): puzzle-solving is driven by adherence to a paradigm (an exemplary puzzle solution). In Kuhn’s description of scientific puzzle-solving, the history of a scientific field is dominated by periods of normal science. Normal science, superficially at least, resembles scientific progress as traditionally described and of the kind one might expect from a standard positivist viewpoint. Scientific success is cumulative; it is by and large steady; it does not encounter significant obstacles or anomalies; scientists of all levels of skill are able to make worthwhile contributions. According to Kuhn NORMAL SCIENCE IS HIGHLY CONSERVATIVE, contrasting with Popper’s description of science as attempting to refute its own best theories. During periods of normal science scientists share a great deal by way of accepted theory, methodology, experimental equipment and techniques, and values. THESE ARE NOT QUESTIONED during normal science; indeed an acceptance of these things is a prerequisite for entering the profession as a scientist in the relevant field. These provide the background that makes normal science, the process of puzzle-solving, possible. Kuhn describes various kinds of puzzle-solving, including determining the value of constants in equations, perfecting experimental techniques, and extending the application of an existing theory to new instances. In so doing, SCIENTISTS ARE NOT CHALLENGING OR ATTEMPTING TO REFUTE BASIC THEORY, which, on the contrary, forms an essential assumption of their work. In the course of basic science observations may be made that seem to conflict with the underlying accepted theory. These are anomalies. But even these do not count as Popperian refutations. Anomalies may themselves be regarded as just further fodder for puzzle-solving. The puzzle is to reconcile the observations and the theory. A good example of this is the anomalous orbit of Uranus, which although in apparent conflict with Newton’s law, was shown in fact to be in full conformity by the discovery of Neptune by Leverrier and Adams. Other unsolved anomalies may be shelved for later consideration. They become troubling only when they arise in sufficient numbers or, more importantly, when they arise in an area that is particularly significant for the underlying theory or its applications (or which is central to the employment of some important technique or piece of apparatus) and continue to defy solution. Under such circumstances it is difficult for normal science to continue in its previously settled vein, and the field is on the verge of crisis. A crisis arises when the accumulation of significant solution-resistant anomalies is such that a sizable proportion of practitioners come to doubt the efficacy of the underlying theory (technique, equipment) to continue to support a puzzle-solving tradition. This in turn means that the field is ripe for revolution, which is the proposal of a new and rival theory to replace the old one. Kuhn notes that revolutions are typically not smooth affairs. There may be considerable resistance to change. For reasons we will come to, Kuhn does not regard the decision to change as one that is rationally forced. However, an important factor may be noted immediately. This is the phenomenon known as “Kuhn-loss.” According to Kuhn a new theory never solves all the puzzles that were regarded as solved by the old theory. It must solve a respectable proportion of the worrying anomalies, but this will be at the cost of leaving unsolved some of the puzzles that had previously been solved successfully. Thus there is a trade-off which may not have a rationally obvious balance of benefits over costs. [Colin's note : Compare with the claim "a successor theory must explain all that its predecessor could, and more".] Kuhn not only describes this cyclical pattern in the history of science, but gives an explanation for it. Kuhn’s key idea is that of a “paradigm.” Since that term has become something of a cliché, it is important to understand exactly what Kuhn meant by it. While its use in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions was somewhat varied, Kuhn later clarified that usage into two related meanings. The broader meaning is that of a consensus around a variety of components of scientific activity: key theories and equations, a terminology, accepted mathematical techniques and experimental procedures. A constellation of such things around which there is a consensus in normal science Kuhn called a “disciplinary matrix.” For the narrower sense of “paradigm” Kuhn used the term “exemplar.” Exemplars are one element of the disciplinary matrix. But they are the most important element, that which explains the remainder. An exemplar is a particularly significant scientific achievement, a puzzle solution (or set of related puzzle solutions) which is so effective that it can crystallize support around it, and which serves as a model for future research. When the paradigm-as-exemplar functions as a model for future research, the resulting proposed puzzle solutions are evaluated according to their similarity to the exemplar. Making judgments of similarity is not a matter that can be settled by the application of rules. When students learn to become scientists they do not learn facts and methodological rules for making discoveries or for evaluating potential discoveries. Rather they are trained in the use of exemplary techniques. This training is a matter of familiarization through repeated exposure and practice. [Colin's note : Do scientists learn to do science through being taught explicit methodological rules - "The Scientific Method"? Does such a beast even exist? Or are science students taught via exemplars, i.e. "Look at how THIS guy did science".] This explains the conservatism of normal science. Training with shared exemplars induces a shared mindset that constrains and directs the thinking of scientists. It enables them to see certain new puzzle solutions and to come to a shared judgment concerning proposed puzzle solutions. So long as the exemplar is fruitful, this process is efficient and effective. Kuhn, conservative in Mannheim’s sense, emphasizes the importance of tradition in shaping what people think and do. There is a normative element, since Kuhn thinks that science cannot function without some degree of respect for the tradition, without which we would be permanently in a state of pre-paradigm foundational dispute, failing to add to our knowledge. At the same time, scientists must be able to innovate and to discard paradigms that have outlived their usefulness. This conflict between tradition and innovation Kuhn describes in his essay “The Essential Tension.” [Colin's note : Kuhn, and even Popper, explicitly invoke the term "dogma", not as a condemnation, but as an acknowledgement that if scientists were simply to drop their theories at the first sign of apparently falsifying evidence, they would have no theories left! ] The functioning of paradigms-as-exemplars also explains the nature of crisis and revolution. A SINGLE ANOMALY DOES NOT REFUTE A THEORY IN THE SIMPLE LOGICAL FASHION THAT POPPER CLAIMED. EQUALLY THERE IS NO LOGICALLY CLEAR AND DECISIVE REFUTATION OF A THEORY BY AN ACCUMULATION OF SIGNIFICANT ANOMALIES. Hence there is room for rational disagreement about whether and to what degree a paradigm is in trouble when anomalies arise. Similarly there is room for rational disagreement over whether a new paradigm should supersede an older one. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions had an enormous influence on the philosophy of science; its portrayal of science and its history, and more importantly, the explanation in terms of paradigms-as-exemplars, was in deep tension with the conceptions of scientific reasoning provided by the logical empiricists. Philosophers as divergent as Carnap and Popper agreed that the inferential relationship (whether inductive confirmation or falsification) between evidence and theory should be a formal, logical matter. The proposed confirmation or falsification of a hypothesis is rule-governed, where the notion of a rule is of something that can be explicitly written down and followed algorithmically. That inference should be so understood was held to be a criterion of its rationality. Consequently, that Kuhn should be suggesting that acceptance of a hypothesis is governed not by explicit, formal rules, but instead by a non-formal, imprecise condition of similarity to an exemplar was taken by his critics to be suggesting that science is irrational. To many, critics and supporters alike, Kuhn’s proposal seemed to be a version of relativism, on the grounds that scientific acceptability is defined relative to a paradigm, rather than by reference to some fixed standard (such as a sempiternal logic). Since paradigms both explain the decisions of scientists and act as a standard of evaluation, Kuhn also rejects a sharp distinction between the contexts of discovery and justification. Kuhn did not intend to promote relativism or irrationalism. Rather he was arguing, in effect, that scientific rationality is not as the logical empiricists took it to be. Learning from exemplars is a ubiquitous feature of human learning, especially, but not only, in language learning; it is not irrational elsewhere, nor is it in science. [Colin's note : As a child, how did you learn the concept of, say, 'cat'? Were you taught methodological rules? (cf. "The Scientific Method" ). Or did you learn by exemplar? ] (Edited by CoIin) | Science Chat Room 1 Person Chatting Similar Conversations |
