Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

AllanfromWales1 t1_irg24rs wrote

Reply to comment by Vast-Material4857 in “Scientific progress is thwarted by the ownership of knowledge.” How Karl Popper’s philosophy of science can overcome clinical corruption. by IAI_Admin

I read "Structure of Scientific Revolutions" 45 years ago but I don't remember it saying that. It certainly said that scientific progress is not as straightforward as Popper suggested, with competing paradigms not even agreeing on what counted as progress, but that's not the same as corruption. I'd more associate that with someone like Paul Feyerabend.

0

Vast-Material4857 t1_irgbl93 wrote

The enforcement of paradigms is corruption, especially in the crisis phase of science because at that point you're not "doing" science, you're regulating it.

1

AllanfromWales1 t1_irgc8ye wrote

Paradigms aren't enforced, they are simply belief-structures.

0

Vast-Material4857 t1_irgd6l8 wrote

You can't enforce belief structures?

2

AllanfromWales1 t1_irge4ko wrote

Kuhn doesn't suggest that this happens in practice. Whether it actually does is another issue.

0

Vast-Material4857 t1_irgfxcr wrote

It absolutely does. We pick and choose how we frame the problem and alienate people with fringe framing. During 'normal' science this is stabilizing but once it gets into crisis science it becomes regressive and you can't avoid that because we don't know what phase we're in until after the fact. This is fundamental.

2

AllanfromWales1 t1_irhpqxl wrote

I've not experienced that personally, but all I'm saying is that you can't take that from Kuhn or Popper unless they have written stuff subsequent to my study of the subject.

1

Vast-Material4857 t1_iriuegc wrote

Schrodinger's cat was a literal attempt to mock quantum physics. Germ theory was similarly ridiculed even despite 40 years amazing data. Ignaz Semmelweis dropped his mortality rate for mother's and children during childbirth by 90% by simply washing his hands, nobody listened to him for DECADES. The list goes on and on. This why Max Planck said, "Science moves at the rate of it's obituaries."

This ideological territorialism. This is a corruption of impartiality and you can't escape it more than science can escape being done by people.

1

AllanfromWales1 t1_irj6usf wrote

I think you need to actually read both Popper and particularly Kuhn. It's not corruption that it takes a lot to overthrow an established theory, it's pragmatic and human.

1