-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: Back to Science for the People - best questions?? Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2004 12:10:15 -0500 From: Richard Levins <humaneco at HSPH.HARVARD.EDU> Reply-To: Science for the People Discussion List<SCIENCE-FOR-THE-PEOPLE at LIST.UVM.EDU> To: SCIENCE-FOR-THE-PEOPLE at LIST.UVM.EDU
THE CRIME OF THOMAS KUHN Since Kuhn introduced the idea of paradigm shift, nobody wants to do "normal science" anymore. Any medium level innovation is advertised as a new paradigm. But whether it is or not, is not a judgement to be made by the author but by later historians of science.The eagerness for new paradigms undermines the distinction between theories that simplify reality (as all do) and those that have already become oversimplifications (that is, they obscure more than they enlighten). The art of theoretical work in science is in deciding not that a theory is incomplete or too narrow or even wrong, but that it no longer advances our understanding.