The Structure Of Scientific Revolutions

[Elle]

I found this on the shelves of my Dad's library and the title caught my curiousity, while the back of the bookcover lead to my disgust.

"The Structure of Scientific Revolution is a landmark in intellectual history which has attracted attention far beyond its own immediate field...

It is written with a combination of depth and clarity that make it an almost unbroken series of aphorisms. Its author, Thoman S. Kuhn, wastes little time on demolishing the logical empiricist view of science as an objective progression toward the truth. Instead he erects from ground up a structure in which science is seen to be heavily influenced by nonrational procedures, and in which new theories are viewed as being more complex than those they usurp but not as standing any closer to the truth...

Science is not the steady, cumulative acquisition of knowledge that is portrayed in textbooks. Rather, it is a series of peaceful interludes punctuated by intellectually violent revolutions...

in each of which one conceptual world view is replaced by another...

Since Kuhn does not permit truth to be a criterion of scientific theories, he would presumably not claim his own theory to be true. But if causing a revolution is the hallmark of a superior paradigm, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions has been a resounding success" Nicholas Wade, Science

Thomas S. Kuhn is the Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

----

Maybe I'm just naive, but I guess I didn't realize the crap that was out there was coming from what should be the highest sources of intellect (e.g. college professors) This was originally published in 1962, so I don't know whether or not he is still at MIT. Still, I am just shocked and I understand if this gets deleted simply because it's of no value to anyone.

What schools (colleges) in the United States are devoid of this kind of garbage?

[DavidOdden]

I don't know where his body is interred, but he was at MIT up to '91. You shouldn't be too surprised that this comes from a college professor (one who abandoned the serious study of physics in a fit of navel contemplation). Where else would it be coming from? You also shouldn't be looking for schools that are free of this kind of irrationality -- seek it out, and combat it. Ignoring it won't make it disappear. Try out David Stove's essay: Popper and After

[Tom]

Several issues spring to mind:

1) Why do scientists continue to ignore the memetic monsters coming out of the philosophical laboratories?

2a) That summary of Kuhn's book is an excellent example of irrationalists counting on irrational psycho-epistemological methods for the absorption of their propaganda. It has often been said that the public needs more books to innoculate themselves against propaganda. But those who need them most urgently are precisely the ones who have no interest in reading them.

2b) Most anti-propaganda books are written by skeptics, who tend to dismiss any attempt at certainty. For example, read Why People Believe Weird Things by Michael Shermer. Poison for food, poison for antidote.

3) Although Marxist revisionism continues unchallenged in history classrooms, modern books on the history of science have shifted to the importance of the scientific discoveries themselves. For example, read The Pinball Effect: How Renaissance Water Gardens Made the Carburetor Possible--And Other Journeys Through Knowledge by James Burke. But how many casual readers of history are there? How many will bother with history outside of school?

Looking over these issues, I see a common factor: habitual methods of mental function.

This aspect of education is as desperately needed as those provided by Montessori education.

[stephen_speicher]

Maybe I'm just naive, but I guess I didn't realize the crap that was out there was coming from what should be the highest sources of intellect (e.g. college professors)  This was originally published in 1962, so I don't know whether or not he is still at MIT.  Still, I am just shocked and I understand if this gets deleted simply because it's of no value to anyone.

You seem to have had a rude awakening , of sorts. Indeed the modern philosophy of science is in pretty bad shape. But, that should not be too much of a surprise when you consider that the philosophy of science is just a sub-category of philosophy in general. Kuhn is repsonsible for a lot of the buzzwords you might hear around, such as "paradigm shift" and "models." Kuhn is no longer with us, but his bad influence remains.

One positive thing, though. Kuhn was not just a philospher of science but he was an historian of science too. The National Science Foundation provided a grant to the American Physical Society and the American Philosophical Society to jointly establish the Archive For The History Of Quantum Physics (AHQP). In "Sources For History Of Quantum Mechanics" (Thomas S. Kuhn, et al., _The American Philosophical Society_, 1967) John Archibald Wheeler describes a brief history of the project and the selection of Kuhn for leadership of the committee. Kuhn provides a detailed explanation of the oral history interviews, the microfilm of memoirs and lectures etc. which was started in 1960. Historians of science are very fortunate to have access to this magnificent Archive, the singlemost important source of original documents for the understanding of the history of quantum mechanics.

So, as bad as Kuhn was philosophically, he did, in fact, create something of value.

What schools (colleges) in the United States are devoid of this kind of garbage?

Philosophy permeates all fields in academia and even the finest technical schools are not devoid of philosophical nonsense. But, the philosophy of science is usually considered by most physicists as an additional course that they must take, and most do not confuse the philosophical nonsense with the physical facts.

[stephen_speicher]

Try out David Stove's essay: Popper and After

I second Dave's recommendation of Stoves's analysis of the four irrationalists, Lakatos, Kuhn, Popper, and Feyerabend. But, I do so with a strong reservation. Stove is much better at critique than at positive presentation, so it is best to focus on what is wrong rather than on what Stove considers right. There is a great deal of interesting analysis to be gleaned from him, though, even if not always as fundamental as such analysis could be.

[stephen_speicher]

Why do scientists continue to ignore the memetic monsters coming out of the philosophical laboratories?

Could you please clarify the question here. Perhaps some more specificity.

[Ed from OC]

Philosophy permeates all fields in academia and even the finest technical schools are not devoid of philosophical nonsense. But, the philosophy of science is usually considered by most physicists as an additional course that they must take, and most do not confuse the philosophical nonsense with the physical facts.

I wasn't required to take any philosophy courses on the way to my physics degree. Most engineers dismiss philosophy completely, precisely because of the irrationalism that has overtaken the field. The concept of a rational philosophy is completely alien to some of them.

As far as schools go, I think the schools that are more practical and down-to-earth are better. For instance, the University of California system focuses more on theory than the California State University system. As a result, some of the software people from UC schools can't program nearly as well as some of the CalState grads. So I would expect to encounter worse explicit philosophy in classes at UC schools, while the Cal State programs are more focused on preparing students for future jobs.

I'll also add that the community college course I took on Shakespeare was amazingly good. My lit courses as an undergrad were overwhelmingly focused on political discussions, using books as a jumping-off point. This Shakespeare course focused on the stories as such, with a little history thrown in for context. That was my favorite humanities course.

So as a rule of thumb, I would say the more prestige a school has, the worse its philosophy. I'm sure there are exceptions, and would definitely look carefully at a school, and within the school, at the particular program. Course catolog descriptions can be very revealing if you know what to look for.

[AMERICONORMAN]

I have a friend’s copy of that book. He gave it to me after we had a small discussion on the relation between science and philosophy. I gave him a copy of ITOE. He’s a lawyer so I figured he would get some value out of the book. I opend the book on March 19th, and read the preface. I stopped because I was working on Induction exercises, which were much more value than continuing with that book. But I made the following entry in my journal.

“ Paradigm (his definition): Universally recognized scientific achievment that for a time provide model problems and solutions to a community of practitioners.”

I commented: “By seeing the role these play in scientific research, he is trying to find the cause between the lack of controversy in the natural science community versus the endemic amount in social science. . . I stopped at the end of the preface but intend to return to it. So far it seems to be too focused on social dialogue versus methods of thought—we’ll see.”

I recently sent my friend my meditation on Dialogue and philosophy. I include it as a document here.

Americo.

Dialogue_and_Philosophy.doc

[Godless Capitalist]

I found this on the shelves of my Dad's library and the title caught my curiousity, while the back of the bookcover lead to my disgust.

"The Structure of Scientific Revolution is a landmark in intellectual history which has attracted attention far beyond its own immediate field...

It is written with a combination of depth and clarity that make it an almost unbroken series of aphorisms.  Its author, Thoman S. Kuhn, wastes little time on demolishing the logical empiricist view of science as an objective progression toward the truth.  Instead he erects from ground up a structure in which science is seen to be heavily influenced by nonrational procedures, and in which new theories are viewed as being more complex than those they usurp but not as standing any closer to the truth...

Science is not the steady, cumulative acquisition of knowledge that is portrayed in textbooks.  Rather, it is a series of peaceful interludes punctuated by intellectually violent revolutions...

in each of which one conceptual world view is replaced by another...

Since Kuhn does not permit truth to be a criterion of scientific theories, he would presumably not claim his own theory to be true.  But if causing a revolution is the hallmark of a superior paradigm, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions has been a resounding success" Nicholas Wade, Science

I've read that book twice and found that Wade's review is actually somewhat worse than the book itself. You do have to read the book pretty critically, but I wouldn't say its complete nonsense.

[Bowzer]

You do have to read the book pretty critically, but I wouldn't say its complete nonsense.

I suppose Kant makes sense in the right light as well.

[Godless Capitalist]

Have you read the book? It has some useful insights on how outmoded ideas become entrenched and then suddenly overthrown. There are some interesting parallels with Objectivism's struggle against "mainstream" philosophy.

[Bowzer]

Have you read the book?

Yes, Kuhn's philosophy is thoroughly Kantian.

[stephen_speicher]

It has some useful insights on how outmoded ideas become entrenched and then suddenly overthrown.

Can you point to what you consider to be one particularly good example of this in the book?

[Godless Capitalist]

Can you point to what you consider to be one particularly good example of this in the book?

pp. 119-120 in the 2nd edition describe the shift from Aristotelian to Galilean (modern) mechanics.

Now Kuhn makes some absurd philosophical comments, certainly, but I think there are some valid insights as well. Ideally scientists should just look at reality and use reason to reach a valid conclusion. Often, though, their reactions to what they observe are colored by their preconceptions about what they expect to see and how they think the world works. The shift from one "paradigm" to another may come suddenly when major evidence is discovered that forces people to change their thinking.

(I'm not going to say much more about this subject until I have chance to go through the book again and think about it, which may take a while.)

[Bowzer]

(I'm not going to say much more about this subject until I have chance to go through the book again and think about it, which may take a while.)

That's a good idea since you seem to harbor Kuhnian/Kantian premises in your thinking by suggesting that scientists' conclusions are "colored by their preconceptions about what they expect to see and how they think the world works."

If you really want to know how scientists gain knowledge, then I highly recommend Bo Dragsdahl, David Harriman, and especially Dr. Peikoff's courses on science.

[BurgessLau]

At this point in the discussion, is there confusion over historical events versus epistemological principles? Is the discussion, as a whole, conflating the two?

Epistemologically, scientists should think logically to ensure objectivity of results.

But, historically, have all scientists done that?

If not, then a historian of science might legitimately look into whether there are patterns of behavior among second-handers, for example, in the field of science. Do they tend to follow an assertive but illogical theory until the contrary evidence becomes so strong that they must change their fundamental view to avoid appearing ridiculous?

It would, of course, be illegitimate for that historian of science, if he found such a pattern, to then turn around and say that is what science is (must be).

[stephen_speicher]

(I'm not going to say much more about this subject until I have chance to go through the book again and think about it, which may take a while.)

There is no point, then, in discussing this until you study it more. Feel free to bring it up then.

[stephen_speicher]

At this point in the discussion, is there confusion over historical events versus epistemological principles? Is the discussion, as a whole, conflating the two?

I see no evidence of that.

Epistemologically, scientists should think logically to ensure objectivity of results.

But, historically, have all scientists done that?

No, of course, not all. But there is no other profession in the history of man that has evinced as great an execution of logic and concern for the facts of reality as in science.

[A.West]

Kuhn and Popper have sent their poison far and wide. A couple of years ago I was arguing with my rationalistic MBA Finance professor about why the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) was rationalistic and floating, and that the epistimological approach taken to arrive at the model was flawed by not trying to first observe what it was claiming to explain. (That is, one should use induction and make observations of what you're trying to analyze, the CAPM, on the other hand, begins by making admittedly false assumptions and then using deduction from that starting point).

The punch line is that the professor, without really answering, told me to go read Kuhn and Popper! According to them, it's okay for this rationalistic professor to debate other rationalistic professors and attempt to "falsify" each other's deductive systems, but it would be ridiculous to try to go out and observe actual investors, investment managers, and institutions to try to arrive at principles of investing, because that's not real knowledge.

[Bowzer]

I have a similar story. A few years ago I was in a graduate program in philosophy of science. One of my classmates had little previous knowledge of philosophy but she did have a biology degree and a knack for abstract thought. When she was lucky enough to get an internship in a biology lab over the summer (and this is at one of world's leading medical institutions), the professor demanded that she withdraw herself from the internship. He flatly stated that if she didn't spend the summer reading philosophy books (and getting "caught up") that she could forget about getting a recommendation from him in the future (a veritable death sentence in the field of philosophy).

This is the end that rationalism brings about: there is no use for induction (i.e., making observations and drawing conclusions from them), rather, one should gain knowledge from books and deduce from that.

Observe Dr. Peikoff's revolutionary discoveries concerning the nature of induction and how he was able to gain this knowledge: by observing actual instances of people making inductions--the exact opposite of what a noted philosopher of science was demanding from my friend. It is no wonder that modern philosophers have had nothing to offer us on the nature of induction since they have all been just like my old professor. It took a giant of reason to grasp what scientists have been taking for granted and what philosophers have been destroying through the ages.

[Dagny]

As far as schools go, I think the schools that are more practical and down-to-earth are better.  For instance, the University of California system focuses more on theory than the California State University system.  As a result, some of the software people from UC schools can't program nearly as well as some of the CalState grads.  So I would expect to encounter worse explicit philosophy in classes at UC schools, while the Cal State programs are more focused on preparing students for future jobs.

I'm an economics/mathematics major and am applying to transfer to UCLA, UC San Diego and Cal State Long Beach next month. Do you think I should not bother with the uc's then and maybe apply to the other cal states? my husband is transferring as well and his major is computer science so it would interest us both to know which is the best university to go to in southern california. thanks

[Jake_Ellison]

I'd like to revive this thread, because I have a question about programming and software design in general. (the question is relevant to the thread, but if a mod can find a better fit for it, please move it)

I find it extremely useful to learn programming in terms of metaphors, analogies, models, paradigms etc. None of these are representations of reality, but rather approximations. There are a lot of examples of analogies and models used in physics too (the billiard ball model for the kinetic theory of gases, wave theory of light--I guess that's not really a completely positive example, etc.).

My question is: Where do I draw the line between relying on clearly useful metaphors in my thinking and in communicating with others while progrsmming, and my values as an Objectivist, which are contradicted by Kuhn's statement for instance that there's no truth only shifting paradigms (I'm paraphrasing)? Is a non-literal and partial interpretation of that (meaning sometimes thinking in terms of a good approximation can be more efficient than finding a truth, in a field of engineering) helpful in programming? (as opposed to philosophy or scientific proof, where it clearly isn't)

[DavidOdden]

Where do I draw the line between relying on clearly useful metaphors in my thinking and in communicating with others while progrsmming, and my values as an Objectivist, which are contradicted by Kuhn's statement for instance that there's no truth only shifting paradigms (I'm paraphrasing)?

The primary fact that you have to focus on is that you are not omniscient but you are also not incapable of knowledge, which means that you will temporarily accept an inadequate understanding while discovering the truth. The main cognitive challenge, I find, is identifying what constitutes genuine and certain knowledge, and what is metaphor or unchecked conjecture needing definition and verification.

The difference, when there is one, between engineering vs. philosophy and science, derives from your goals as an engineer vs. a scientist. If your goal is to solve a specific problem, then there is no betrayal of principles if you focus on that goal (which is easier to reach, because there are fewer long-term consequences to be concerned with). If your goal is to discover the true nature of reality, then accepting an untruth is much more deadly. Of course it would be a mistake to think that engineers have no interest in ultimate truth or that scientists can never rely for an instant on metaphors and conjectures.

[softwareNerd]

Where do I draw the line between relying on clearly useful metaphors in my thinking and in communicating with others while progrsmming, and my values as an Objectivist...

If I take this to an extreme, and then abstract it, I'd say the question becomes: "can fantasy be useful, and where does one draw the line?"

I think Philosophy would answer that fantasy is perfectly fine as long as you do not blur the line.

I think the more detailed advice would come from Psychology. E.g. how does one use metaphor to picture something without becoming so wed to a good metaphor that one ignores the ways in which the metaphor "does not work".

BTW: There was an earlier thread on analogies, though that did a bit side-tracked with other issues.

[MajorTom]

I find this thread particularly interesting as I am currently enrolled in a philosophy of science class called "Reason and Revolution" (a seductive title for sure).

We just finished Kuhn's Copernican Revolution and are now delving into Structure. The professor, however, has lectured us so far on Kuhn's philosophy, and even with this tiny amount of knowledge I have, I can point out some things I believe some posters on this thread are confused about .

First of all, Kuhn's "paradigm" is not a model. It works a bit more like a world-view. It is a mix of philosophical, religious, and scientific beliefs that Kuhn believes have a immense role in how scientific revolutions come about. He came to this conclusion in his study of history of science.

An example of a paradigm is the Ptolemaic geocentric theory for the universe. This theory explained that pre-Galilean data of the movement of the sun, moon, stars, and planets. The theory wasn't perfect: it required an incredibly complex system of epicycles, equants, and eccentricities to make work. However, it fit with the Christian and Aristotelian views of the earth being at the center of the universe, it fit with Aristotelean physics, and it was easier to think that earth was stationary than moving because we on earth perceive no movement.

Ptolemy's astronomy was overthrown by Copernicus's heliocentric theory, and as a result, people had to completely change their world-view of astronomy. For example, suddenly there were contradictions with the bible (bad news in the 16th century), and the Philosophers previously unchallenged physics suddenly were wrong.

Additionally, Copernicus's theory did not even explain that data with any more accuracy than Ptolemy's, and it was just as complex. Without the popularization of astronomy done by Galileo and the perfection of the Copernican system done by Kepler, Ptolemy's paradigm might have lived longer.

The punch line is that the professor, without really answering, told me to go read Kuhn and Popper! According to them, it's okay for this rationalistic professor to debate other rationalistic professors and attempt to "falsify" each other's deductive systems, but it would be ridiculous to try to go out and observe [snip]

One shouldn't label Kuhn a falsificationist. Kuhn rejected falsification because he believed that scientists became attached to their theories, and therefore would not want to point out their fundamental flaws. This led to a major split in the late 20th century between Popperians and Kuhnians. They are two different animals.

I don't buy verification, falsification, or Kuhnianism, but I would prefer it if we all had a better understanding of what these philosophies are about before we continue discussion.