Paradigm: A Criterion for Choosing Problems
I graduated in 1959 as an electronics engineer. I had been taught how to use math to solve engineering problems. I was taught how to do math but never taught what math and science was really about. After reading Thomas Kuhn’s book “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions several years ago I began to understand the ways of math and the ways of solving problems in the natural sciences.
Normal science is a puzzle-solving enterprise. Normal science is a slow accumulation of knowledge by a methodical step-by-step process undertaken by a group of scientists.
“One of the things a scientific community acquires with a paradigm is a criterion for choosing problems that, while the paradigm is taken for granted, can be assumed to have solutions¦A paradigm can, for that matter, even insulate the community from those socially important problems that are not reducible to the puzzle form, because they cannot be stated in terms of the conceptual and instrumental tools the paradigm supplies.
The author notes that all “real science is normally a habit-governed, puzzle-solving activity and not a philosophical activity. Paradigm and not hypothesis is the active meaning for the ‘new image of science’. Paradigm is neither a theory nor a metaphysical viewpoint.
Kuhn’s new image of science—the paradigm—is an artifact (a human achievement), a way of seeing, and is a set of scientific problem solving habits. Normal science means research based upon one or more past achievements ‘that some particular community acknowledges for a time as supplying the foundation for its further practice¦and these achievements are sufficiently unprecedented to attract an enduring group pf adherents away from competing modes of scientific activity’ furthermore they are sufficiently open-ended to leave all sorts of problems for the redefined group of practitioners to solve’. Such achievements Kuhn defines as paradigm.
“A puzzle-solving paradigm, unlike a puzzle-solving hypothetico-deductive system, has also got to be a concrete ‘way of seeing’.
Kuhn constantly refers to the ‘gestalt switch’ when discussing the switch in reference from one paradigm to another as ‘re-seeing’ action. Each paradigm has been constructed to be a ‘way-of-seeing’. Here Kuhn is speaking not about what the paradigm is but how the paradigm is used. He is defining a paradigm as a newly developed puzzle-solving artifact that is used analogically to understand another artifact; for example, using wire and beads strung together to facilitate understanding the protein molecule.
I think that we place “Science on too high a pedestal and thereby distort our comprehension of political and social problems. We cannot solve social and political problems like we solve the questions formed by the normal sciences.
Do you think that we place Science on too high a pedestal?
Paradigm: A Criterion for Choosing Problems
Paradigm: A Criterion for Choosing Problems
coberst;920378 wrote: Paradigm: A Criterion for Choosing Problems
I graduated in 1959 as an electronics engineer. I had been taught how to use math to solve engineering problems. I was taught how to do math but never taught what math and science was really about. After reading Thomas Kuhn’s book “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” several years ago I began to understand the ways of math and the ways of solving problems in the natural sciences.
Normal science is a puzzle-solving enterprise. Normal science is a slow accumulation of knowledge by a methodical step-by-step process undertaken by a group of scientists.
“One of the things a scientific community acquires with a paradigm is a criterion for choosing problems that, while the paradigm is taken for granted, can be assumed to have solutions…A paradigm can, for that matter, even insulate the community from those socially important problems that are not reducible to the puzzle form, because they cannot be stated in terms of the conceptual and instrumental tools the paradigm supplies.”
The author notes that all “real science is normally a habit-governed, puzzle-solving activity” and not a philosophical activity. Paradigm and not hypothesis is the active meaning for the ‘new image of science’. Paradigm is neither a theory nor a metaphysical viewpoint.
Kuhn’s new image of science—the paradigm—is an artifact (a human achievement), a way of seeing, and is a set of scientific problem solving habits. Normal science means research based upon one or more past achievements ‘that some particular community acknowledges for a time as supplying the foundation for its further practice…and these achievements are sufficiently unprecedented to attract an enduring group pf adherents away from competing modes of scientific activity’ furthermore they are sufficiently open-ended to leave all sorts of problems for the redefined group of practitioners to solve’. Such achievements Kuhn defines as paradigm.
“A puzzle-solving paradigm, unlike a puzzle-solving hypothetico-deductive system, has also got to be a concrete ‘way of seeing’.”
Kuhn constantly refers to the ‘gestalt switch’ when discussing the switch in reference from one paradigm to another as ‘re-seeing’ action. Each paradigm has been constructed to be a ‘way-of-seeing’. Here Kuhn is speaking not about what the paradigm is but how the paradigm is used. He is defining a paradigm as a newly developed puzzle-solving artifact that is used analogically to understand another artifact; for example, using wire and beads strung together to facilitate understanding the protein molecule.
I think that we place “Science” on too high a pedestal and thereby distort our comprehension of political and social problems. We cannot solve social and political problems like we solve the questions formed by the normal sciences.
Do you think that we place Science on too high a pedestal?
No, I don't actually, I think people's conception of what science is all about is generally flawed, and the vast majority of people on planet Earth are scientifically illiterate, and have a far better understanding of theology than science, hence the old 95 percent believing in that guy in the sky with a beard (or a turban). Whether people can use technology is not the issue, its whether they have any understanding of why all this technology works so well and so powerfully.
Science is not a philosophy in itself, as you say, it is a body of knowledge pertaining to physical reality and when I speak of science here I speak of hard science, not the phenomological stuff like sociology, or psychology, I mean physics, chemistry, and biology. However, I disagree that there is not a fundamental philosophical viewpoint that is required to sustain the scientific method, obviously the first is secularism, but also the belief that human beings are capable of improving their world (which is mutable and infinitely changeable) by altering it and also improving themselves is a must if there is to be any point to studying science, this I grant you is a belief, therefore positivism, dynamicism, and reductionism are all crucial.
The only civilization that has promulgated these ideas is Western Civilization, not Islam, or Confusicianism, or Buddism, or any other that I know of. In recent times non Western nations have adopted Western science, but to do this have had to implicitly accept the Western philosophical viewpoint in regards to the scientific method, this would suggest to me that there is certainly a philosophical "package" of which science is the cornerstone, and talisman.
My own view as a scientist is that science is the most intellectually honest of all the human disciplines, and this is because nature will not tolerate sophistry. Its my estimation that science is now firmly embedded in and concept of modernism and only a general civilizational collpase would stop that now, though it does seem to be going into decline now as a part of the once confident and optimistic worldview of Westerners, they fear science rather than see it as a means to solve problems, intolerance, mysticism, and religion rears its ugly head, and the world becomes an increasingly religiously driven place once more. Unfortunately the fact that the industrialized nations are comprised of citizens who generally have no real idea of how everything works, (and keeps everyone fed, the essential role of technology and power) is saddening.
I graduated in 1959 as an electronics engineer. I had been taught how to use math to solve engineering problems. I was taught how to do math but never taught what math and science was really about. After reading Thomas Kuhn’s book “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” several years ago I began to understand the ways of math and the ways of solving problems in the natural sciences.
Normal science is a puzzle-solving enterprise. Normal science is a slow accumulation of knowledge by a methodical step-by-step process undertaken by a group of scientists.
“One of the things a scientific community acquires with a paradigm is a criterion for choosing problems that, while the paradigm is taken for granted, can be assumed to have solutions…A paradigm can, for that matter, even insulate the community from those socially important problems that are not reducible to the puzzle form, because they cannot be stated in terms of the conceptual and instrumental tools the paradigm supplies.”
The author notes that all “real science is normally a habit-governed, puzzle-solving activity” and not a philosophical activity. Paradigm and not hypothesis is the active meaning for the ‘new image of science’. Paradigm is neither a theory nor a metaphysical viewpoint.
Kuhn’s new image of science—the paradigm—is an artifact (a human achievement), a way of seeing, and is a set of scientific problem solving habits. Normal science means research based upon one or more past achievements ‘that some particular community acknowledges for a time as supplying the foundation for its further practice…and these achievements are sufficiently unprecedented to attract an enduring group pf adherents away from competing modes of scientific activity’ furthermore they are sufficiently open-ended to leave all sorts of problems for the redefined group of practitioners to solve’. Such achievements Kuhn defines as paradigm.
“A puzzle-solving paradigm, unlike a puzzle-solving hypothetico-deductive system, has also got to be a concrete ‘way of seeing’.”
Kuhn constantly refers to the ‘gestalt switch’ when discussing the switch in reference from one paradigm to another as ‘re-seeing’ action. Each paradigm has been constructed to be a ‘way-of-seeing’. Here Kuhn is speaking not about what the paradigm is but how the paradigm is used. He is defining a paradigm as a newly developed puzzle-solving artifact that is used analogically to understand another artifact; for example, using wire and beads strung together to facilitate understanding the protein molecule.
I think that we place “Science” on too high a pedestal and thereby distort our comprehension of political and social problems. We cannot solve social and political problems like we solve the questions formed by the normal sciences.
Do you think that we place Science on too high a pedestal?
No, I don't actually, I think people's conception of what science is all about is generally flawed, and the vast majority of people on planet Earth are scientifically illiterate, and have a far better understanding of theology than science, hence the old 95 percent believing in that guy in the sky with a beard (or a turban). Whether people can use technology is not the issue, its whether they have any understanding of why all this technology works so well and so powerfully.
Science is not a philosophy in itself, as you say, it is a body of knowledge pertaining to physical reality and when I speak of science here I speak of hard science, not the phenomological stuff like sociology, or psychology, I mean physics, chemistry, and biology. However, I disagree that there is not a fundamental philosophical viewpoint that is required to sustain the scientific method, obviously the first is secularism, but also the belief that human beings are capable of improving their world (which is mutable and infinitely changeable) by altering it and also improving themselves is a must if there is to be any point to studying science, this I grant you is a belief, therefore positivism, dynamicism, and reductionism are all crucial.
The only civilization that has promulgated these ideas is Western Civilization, not Islam, or Confusicianism, or Buddism, or any other that I know of. In recent times non Western nations have adopted Western science, but to do this have had to implicitly accept the Western philosophical viewpoint in regards to the scientific method, this would suggest to me that there is certainly a philosophical "package" of which science is the cornerstone, and talisman.
My own view as a scientist is that science is the most intellectually honest of all the human disciplines, and this is because nature will not tolerate sophistry. Its my estimation that science is now firmly embedded in and concept of modernism and only a general civilizational collpase would stop that now, though it does seem to be going into decline now as a part of the once confident and optimistic worldview of Westerners, they fear science rather than see it as a means to solve problems, intolerance, mysticism, and religion rears its ugly head, and the world becomes an increasingly religiously driven place once more. Unfortunately the fact that the industrialized nations are comprised of citizens who generally have no real idea of how everything works, (and keeps everyone fed, the essential role of technology and power) is saddening.
"We are never so happy, never so unhappy, as we imagine"
Le Rochefoucauld.
"A smack in the face settles all arguments, then you can move on kid."
My dad 1986.
Le Rochefoucauld.
"A smack in the face settles all arguments, then you can move on kid."
My dad 1986.
Paradigm: A Criterion for Choosing Problems
Galbally
I think that our problem is related to our definition of the word "science". Kuhn has defined the phrase "normal science" to mean pretty much what you call science, but many people working in other fields than normal science, i.e. physics, will not accept such a limited use of that word.
Could we come up with a definition of the word "science" that is acceptable to most of us?
I think that we have the common meaning of the word "science", which is equivalent to either "physics", "natural science", or to "technology".
I think that "science" means a domain of knowledge that meets some ridged standards of methodology and seeks to establish principles that can serve as stepping stones for reaching further into a depth of understanding about that domain of knowledge.
I think that our problem is related to our definition of the word "science". Kuhn has defined the phrase "normal science" to mean pretty much what you call science, but many people working in other fields than normal science, i.e. physics, will not accept such a limited use of that word.
Could we come up with a definition of the word "science" that is acceptable to most of us?
I think that we have the common meaning of the word "science", which is equivalent to either "physics", "natural science", or to "technology".
I think that "science" means a domain of knowledge that meets some ridged standards of methodology and seeks to establish principles that can serve as stepping stones for reaching further into a depth of understanding about that domain of knowledge.
Paradigm: A Criterion for Choosing Problems
coberst;920810 wrote: Galbally
I think that our problem is related to our definition of the word "science". Kuhn has defined the phrase "normal science" to mean pretty much what you call science, but many people working in other fields than normal science, i.e. physics, will not accept such a limited use of that word.
Could we come up with a definition of the word "science" that is acceptable to most of us?
I think that we have the common meaning of the word "science", which is equivalent to either "physics", "natural science", or to "technology".
I think that "science" means a domain of knowledge that meets some ridged standards of methodology and seeks to establish principles that can serve as stepping stones for reaching further into a depth of understanding about that domain of knowledge.
Quite.
Its my opinion that science, or real science, is the body of knowledge and the worldview contained within the 3 classical branches of hard science, i.e. Physics, Chemistry, and Biology. Of these 3 physics is the most fundamental, and its basis is mathematics and logic. Everything else is secondary to this structure.
I think that our problem is related to our definition of the word "science". Kuhn has defined the phrase "normal science" to mean pretty much what you call science, but many people working in other fields than normal science, i.e. physics, will not accept such a limited use of that word.
Could we come up with a definition of the word "science" that is acceptable to most of us?
I think that we have the common meaning of the word "science", which is equivalent to either "physics", "natural science", or to "technology".
I think that "science" means a domain of knowledge that meets some ridged standards of methodology and seeks to establish principles that can serve as stepping stones for reaching further into a depth of understanding about that domain of knowledge.
Quite.
Its my opinion that science, or real science, is the body of knowledge and the worldview contained within the 3 classical branches of hard science, i.e. Physics, Chemistry, and Biology. Of these 3 physics is the most fundamental, and its basis is mathematics and logic. Everything else is secondary to this structure.
"We are never so happy, never so unhappy, as we imagine"
Le Rochefoucauld.
"A smack in the face settles all arguments, then you can move on kid."
My dad 1986.
Le Rochefoucauld.
"A smack in the face settles all arguments, then you can move on kid."
My dad 1986.
Paradigm: A Criterion for Choosing Problems
Galbally
The problem comes from the fact that everyone uses the word "science" to mean very many different concepts and that the word has become so important in our society that everyone ends up being very confused.
It would be fine, I think, if everyone restricted science to mean physics, biology, and chemistry. In fact I think that we all would be better off if we discarded the word and started all over.
Kuhn seems to have tried to do this by using the phrase "normal science", which is restricted to those domains of knowledge that use paradigms in the fashion that Kuhn describes. I suspect that biology would not fall in that category because there is the Darwin theory and the creationist thing.
The problem comes from the fact that everyone uses the word "science" to mean very many different concepts and that the word has become so important in our society that everyone ends up being very confused.
It would be fine, I think, if everyone restricted science to mean physics, biology, and chemistry. In fact I think that we all would be better off if we discarded the word and started all over.
Kuhn seems to have tried to do this by using the phrase "normal science", which is restricted to those domains of knowledge that use paradigms in the fashion that Kuhn describes. I suspect that biology would not fall in that category because there is the Darwin theory and the creationist thing.
Paradigm: A Criterion for Choosing Problems
Kuhn is an interesting philosopher ...
Even logic itself could be seen as having moral jugdememts in the core structure, since we may always ask ... why *should* we use one type of logic over another? Kuhn makes an interesting point that science is a human or social activity, where the moral values are shared and evolve over time. To be in the club of "science" one has to play by the rules defined by the group, and share the moral values.
One issue though is that if we have a big hammer, every problem starts to look like a big nail. Many problems are approached from a scientific or engineering point of view, but social approaches would be better. Since there's a human at the other end of any problem ... it doesn't always need some engineered contraption ... maybe just a change or adaptation in human behavior.
Even logic itself could be seen as having moral jugdememts in the core structure, since we may always ask ... why *should* we use one type of logic over another? Kuhn makes an interesting point that science is a human or social activity, where the moral values are shared and evolve over time. To be in the club of "science" one has to play by the rules defined by the group, and share the moral values.
One issue though is that if we have a big hammer, every problem starts to look like a big nail. Many problems are approached from a scientific or engineering point of view, but social approaches would be better. Since there's a human at the other end of any problem ... it doesn't always need some engineered contraption ... maybe just a change or adaptation in human behavior.
Paradigm: A Criterion for Choosing Problems
coberst;921608 wrote: Galbally
The problem comes from the fact that everyone uses the word "science" to mean very many different concepts and that the word has become so important in our society that everyone ends up being very confused.
It would be fine, I think, if everyone restricted science to mean physics, biology, and chemistry. In fact I think that we all would be better off if we discarded the word and started all over.
Kuhn seems to have tried to do this by using the phrase "normal science", which is restricted to those domains of knowledge that use paradigms in the fashion that Kuhn describes. I suspect that biology would not fall in that category because there is the Darwin theory and the creationist thing.
I understand your point of view, though I think this is really an issue about popular culture and not science itself, more how it is percieved than what it is. Darwinism is a prime example of the problem. The current fashion for instance is to somehow draw an equivalence between Natural Selection (darwinism) and what is loosely termed "creationism". Darwinism is hard science at its best, its a relatively simple set of rules, that can be used to describe universally how very simple structures can self-assemble to create very very complex structures, without requiring divine intervention, I am sure that should life exist on other planets, it will almost certainly have evolved based on natural selection.
It is to date, the only theory that comes anywhere close to being able to explain rationally how the complex world we see around us came to be.
Creationism however is the complete opposite, it is religious christian dogma, and its about as far removed from scientific fact as can be imagined, its basic premise is that the biblical story of creation is accurate, and then it seeks to either find evidence for this after the hypothesis has been stated, or try to pick holes (however tiny) in the rational explanation. This is an anti-scientific process of the first order, selecting the facts to fit the hypothesis, not developing a hypothesis based on the facts, which is why scientists and others get so angry at the claims of creationists of parity on the basis of their "alternative" science. That such ideas are given creedence in popular US culture explains precisely what the problem is, the very dim understanding of what science and the scientific method are.
The problem comes from the fact that everyone uses the word "science" to mean very many different concepts and that the word has become so important in our society that everyone ends up being very confused.
It would be fine, I think, if everyone restricted science to mean physics, biology, and chemistry. In fact I think that we all would be better off if we discarded the word and started all over.
Kuhn seems to have tried to do this by using the phrase "normal science", which is restricted to those domains of knowledge that use paradigms in the fashion that Kuhn describes. I suspect that biology would not fall in that category because there is the Darwin theory and the creationist thing.
I understand your point of view, though I think this is really an issue about popular culture and not science itself, more how it is percieved than what it is. Darwinism is a prime example of the problem. The current fashion for instance is to somehow draw an equivalence between Natural Selection (darwinism) and what is loosely termed "creationism". Darwinism is hard science at its best, its a relatively simple set of rules, that can be used to describe universally how very simple structures can self-assemble to create very very complex structures, without requiring divine intervention, I am sure that should life exist on other planets, it will almost certainly have evolved based on natural selection.
It is to date, the only theory that comes anywhere close to being able to explain rationally how the complex world we see around us came to be.
Creationism however is the complete opposite, it is religious christian dogma, and its about as far removed from scientific fact as can be imagined, its basic premise is that the biblical story of creation is accurate, and then it seeks to either find evidence for this after the hypothesis has been stated, or try to pick holes (however tiny) in the rational explanation. This is an anti-scientific process of the first order, selecting the facts to fit the hypothesis, not developing a hypothesis based on the facts, which is why scientists and others get so angry at the claims of creationists of parity on the basis of their "alternative" science. That such ideas are given creedence in popular US culture explains precisely what the problem is, the very dim understanding of what science and the scientific method are.
"We are never so happy, never so unhappy, as we imagine"
Le Rochefoucauld.
"A smack in the face settles all arguments, then you can move on kid."
My dad 1986.
Le Rochefoucauld.
"A smack in the face settles all arguments, then you can move on kid."
My dad 1986.