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Re: SCIENCE OFTEN MASQUERADES AS LAW (AND VICE-VERSA)
David Rublin (rublin@nmt.edu)
Wed, 26 Apr 1995 00:04:17 GMT
In article <3nj2jj$lb8@news.bu.edu>, Richard Kondo <kondo@buphy.bu.edu> wrote:
>Poor Richard (an175779@anon.penet.fi) wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
>: Poor Richard agrees with Dr. Fujita and believes that many scientists
Blah Blah Blah....snip..........
>
> As usual, Poor Richard has written another one of his/her
>provocative statements without much evidential substantiation. However,
>the issues raised are important.
> I don't know to the degree that the peer review system is
>abused and the degree to which orthodoxy reigns.
>
> However, I would like to consider the ideas of Thomas Kuhn,
>elaborated in his book, 'The Structure of a Scientific Revolution'.
>His idea, paraphrased and filtered through my interpretation, is that
>science proceeds via 'paradigm shifts'. In this scheme, scientists
>do science according to the reigning paradigms and orthodoxies. These
>paradigms include theories, experimental methodologies and tools.
>The paradigm shapes the types of the experiments done and the
>interpretation of the data. However, as the science proceeds,
>contradictions between the experimental data and current theory
>accumulate to the point that someone creates a new paradigm. Some
>of the usually cited paradigms have been a) Ptolemic universe to
>Copernican Universe, b) Newtonian to Einsteinian c) classical to
>quantum.
> Kuhn's ideas were attacked by philosophers of science, since
>he seemed to deny scientific progress. Additionally, it is
>difficult to discern shifts in paradigm (it depends on the eye
>of the beholder). However, they lit the imagination of many in
>other fields, and they introduced the notion of the sociology of
>science.
> Scientific endeavour includes not only an empirical
>search for the nature of the universe, but political
>squabbling and scientific doctrine. Individual scientists
>can and do fall victim to these forces. However, before we
>completely condemn orthodoxies, it should be noted that
>paradigms focus scientific effort in areas and questions which
>have been shown to be fruitful in the past. Most of us, myself
>included, need such structure.
>
>Richard Kondo
>--
>kondo@buphy.bu.edu
>Cardiac Muscle Research Laboratory
>Boston University
>
Any one else see the analogies that can be drawn between this process and
the way that law works? Law followed by interpritation and precidence for
new interpritation . . . followed by a new law ect. And yet both subject
to the the ethics of individuals. Hmm, interisting.
--dave-->
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