Re Richard's comment on Kuhn;
Exactly. I had Kuhn in mind too. This case might be a little different from others because it didn't really overthrow an operational law or require the creation of any new ones. Uniformitarianism survived through it all, even though geologists were quick to revisit the concept and mop it up by adding some explicit language on what it meant. What it did was shatter some misconceptions and prejudices that had accumulated in the science over the years. It might be an example of a paradigm shift but the objections to the asteroid impact were not, as I remember, based on claims that it violated any established scientific principles. What I heard was an emotional response that compared the impact theory to sensationalized tabloid journalism. But I am sure that what was behind it was the ingrained belief among most geologists that the world has evolved through slow changes and events that are part of our experience. Even when considering sudden mass extinctions, such dubious ideas as mass disease episodes and wholesale extinction caused by competing species when continents joined were much more respectble than the idea of a giant fireball falling from the sky. The mindset has changed now and we are more willing to examine our beliefs but it is human nature to create images of the world and live by them.
Sun Apr 28, 2013 2:07 pm (PDT) . Posted by:
"Richard Tyndall" bawabus
The philosopher Thomas Kuhn believed that science does not ascend the 'systematic elevator' envisaged by Karl Popper. He thought that because of the very peer based inertia you are describing, real change in scientific thought can only come about through paradigm shifts. Rather like Gould and Eldridge' s Punctuated Equilibrium theory of evolution where things stay the same for an extended period with only minor changes and then change profoundly over a very short space of time.
"Science is not a heartless pursuit of objective information. It is a creative human activity, its geniuses acting more as artists than as information processors."
"Science is not a heartless pursuit of objective information. It is a creative human activity, its geniuses acting more as artists than as information processors."
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