[geocentrism] Re: Why Geocentric Research?
- From: "philip madsen" <pma15027@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <geocentrism@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2007 09:52:54 +1000
Philip adds:
[edit] Philosophical problems with scientific objectivity
Based on a historical review of the development of certain scientific theories,
in his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions historian Thomas Kuhn
raised some philosophical objections to claims of the possibility of scientific
understanding being truly objective. In Kuhn's analysis, scientists in
different disciplines organise themselves into de facto paradigms, within which
scientific research is done, junior scientists are educated, and scientific
problems are determined. The implicit social hierarchy of a scientific paradigm
ensures that only scientists who are thoroughly immersed in the intellectual
construction of the paradigm acquire the reputation and status to pronounce
authoritatively on matters of dispute, and those scientists have a vested
interest in maintaining the status quo (which confers on them this de facto
position of authority).
When observational data arises which appears to contradict or "falsify" a given
scientific paradigm, scientists within that paradigm have not, historically,
immediately rejected the paradigm in question (as Sir Karl Popper's
philosophical theory of falsificationism would have them do) but have gone to
considerable lengths to resolve the apparent conflict without rejecting the
paradigm, through ad hoc variations to the theory, sympathetic interpretations
of the data which allow for assimilation, determination that the "conundrum"
the data was obtained to explain in the first place is misconceived, or in
extreme cases simply ignoring the data altogether (for example, on the basis of
the lack of scientific credentials of its source).
Thus, Kuhn argues, the failure of a scientific revolution is not an objectively
measurable, deterministic event, but a far more contingent shift in social
order. A paradigm will go into a crisis when a significant portion of the
scientists working in the field lose confidence in the paradigm, regardless of
their reasons for doing so. The corollary of this observation is that the
primacy of a given paradigm is similarly contingent on the social order amongst
scientists at the time it gains ascendancy.
Kuhn's theory has been criticised (by Richard Dawkins and Alan Sokal, among
others) as presenting a profoundly relativist view of scientific progress. In a
postscript to the third edition of his book, Kuhn denied being a relativist.
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