MAGA Choice: Reality Or Lies

Like the choice between competing political institutions, that between competing paradigms proves to be a choice between incompatible modes of community life.  Because it has that character, the choice is not and cannot be determined merely by the evaluative procedures characteristic of normal science, for these depend in part upon a particular paradigm, and the paradigm is at issue.  When paradigms enter, as they must, into a debate about paradigm choice, their role is necessarily circular.  Each group uses its own paradigm to argue in that paradigm’s defense.
—     Thomas S. Kuhn
From his book:   “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions“
[Unfortunately for Democracy, Trumpers STILL choose lies…    —    KMAB]
.
On This Day In:
2020	A Good Reason To Blog
	Finally Enjoying The View
2019	Living Free
2018	Relative Imagination
2017	Thank You, Senator McCain (So Far Anyway)
2016	What About Friends?
2015	It Tastes Good To Me
2014	Others’ Footsteps
	The Not-So-Modern Samurai
2013	Doin’
2012	A Lover
2011	What Have We Found Here
	Words

Read Full Post »

Very Young Or Very New

Sometimes the shape of the new paradigm is foreshadowed in the structure that extraordinary research has given to the anomaly.  … More often no such structure is consciously seen in advance. Instead, the new paradigm, or a sufficient hint to permit later articulation, emerges all at once, sometimes in the middle of the night, in the mind of a man deeply immersed in crisis.  What the nature of that final stage is — how an individual invents (or finds he has invented) a new way of giving order to data now all assembled — must here remain inscrutable and may be permanently so.  Let us here note only one thing about it.  Almost always the men who achieve these fundamental inventions of a new paradigm have been either very young or very new to the field whose paradigm they change.
—    Thomas S. Kuhn
From his book:  “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions“
.
On This Day In:
2020	Or To Destroy Democracy
2019	A Defense Of Liberty
2018	And Blog To Word Up To The Universe
	The Irony Of Greed
2017	Or Revisiting A Blog Site
2016	Alas, Too Often The Latter
2015	Either / Or
2014	Memorial Day – 2014
	Perfection
2013	Memorial Day Video
	Equal = Equal
2012	Congrats, Nephew!!
	Doggie Vision Networks
	The Flash: Omnibus
	JLI: vol 1
	Flash: Rebirth
	Burning Images
	What Do You Believe?
2011	Are We Still At War With The Poor?

Read Full Post »

The False Stereotype

No process yet disclosed by the historical study of scientific development at all resembles the methodological stereotype of falsification by direct comparison with nature.
—    Thomas S. Kuhn
From his book:  “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions“
.
On This Day In:
2020	Fate, Agency And Dumb Luck
2019	You Too Can Choose
2018	In Line
2017	Just Get It Right
2016	In Support Of Common Core
2015	Oscillation
2014	Truth Shift
2013	Real Heroes
2012	Controlling The Beast
2011	1,002

Read Full Post »

Emergent Novelty

The man who is striving to solve a problem defined by existing knowledge and technique is not, however, just looking around.  He knows what he wants to achieve, and he designs his instruments and directs his thoughts accordingly.  Unanticipated novelty, the new discovery, can emerge only to the extent that his anticipations about nature and his instruments prove wrong.
—     Thomas S. Kuhn
From his book: “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions“
.
On This Day In:
2020	A Steep Price Ahead
	Möbius
2019	Eureka!
2018	Learning About My Humanity
2017	Laugh Or Shake Your Head
2016	The Expected Cure
2015	Of Two Minds
2014	Pride And Remembrance
2013	Repeating Bad Memories
2012	No Sooner
2011	Just Cheesy!
	Are You Illin’?

Read Full Post »

Is Science Cumulative?

Cumulative acquisition of unanticipated novelties proves to be an almost non-existent exception to the rule of scientific development.  The man who takes historic fact seriously must suspect that science does not tend toward the ideal that our image of its cumulativeness has suggested.  Perhaps it is another sort of enterprise.
If, however, resistant facts can carry us that far, then a second look at the ground we have already covered may suggest that cumulative acquisition of novelty is not only rare in fact but improbable in principle.  Normal research, which is cumulative, owes its success to the ability of scientists regularly to select problems that can be solved with conceptual and instrumental techniques close to those already in existence.
—   Thomas S. Kuhn
From his book:  “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions“
.
On This Day In:
2020	Where #45 Is Leading The Republican Party
2019	Your Own Blog Posts
	The Man With A Code
2018	Choose Goodness
2017	Developing Translations
2016	Think Like A Hero
2015	Reductionism
2014	Gravitation, n.
2013	Ups And Downs
2012	Nerd Heard – And Good-Bye
	Your Continuum
2011	Career Tips (Part 2)

Read Full Post »

Resistant Expectation

In science, as in the playing card experiment, novelty emerges only with difficulty, manifested by resistance, against a background provided by expectation.
—    Thomas S. Kuhn
From his book:  “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions“
[Note: “the playing card experiment” is a psychological test of individuals to evaluate subject’s perceptions via the use of a few modified cards in a standard deck of four suits. i.e. a red, six of spades.  Most individuals insisted the colors were black or shadowed with black (they were not).  This happened even when the “exposure” to the card was longer than a two seconds.  The experiment hi-lights we have a “natural” proclivity to “see” what we expect to see.   —    KMAB]
.
On This Day In:
2019	Two More Reasons Trump Is Such A Poor Leader
2018	Conservatives Have 20/20 Hindsight
	#Forever44
2017	Dodgers Choke Away World Series
	Firing Director Comey = Obstruction
2016	Why Do Republicans Always Seem To Be Angry?
2015	All Things Being Equal
2014	Fearful Light
2013	Unexpectedly Knowledgeable
2012	Seems Obvious
2011	See The Specialist

Read Full Post »

Poor Proof

“Introducing Science”  —  book review
Today’s review is for the graphic introductory book:  “Introducing Science” (2001©) written by Ziauddin Sardar and Borin Van Loon.  This book is apparently a recovered (as in published with a new cover) book which was previously titled:  “Introducing Science Studies“.  The original title is FAR more accurate and the title I purchased is misleading, if not completely false.  This is not a book about “Science”.  It starts off as a history of science and jumps into being a criticism of the philosophy of science and an overview of the history of the social epistemology of science during the later half of the 20th century.
What’s the difference?  Well, to me, science is the study of what we can measure and quantify with the goal of better understanding the universe as we experience it.  Basically, you observe; you propose an explanation; you come up with a test of your proposal;  you execute the test and accurately record the results;  you evaluate the results for significance; and, then you publish your results and conclusions for peer review.  If the review shows the test flawed or the data is not significant or not repeatable, then your results —  and specifically your conclusions are unproven “scientifically”.   You then have to go back to the drawing board to come up with a new test or a better theory.  Ultimately, the final goal of “understanding” is to have a theory with predictive value.
This book deals with none of these issues.
What this book DOES do is make claims about science being “Western” and “male” dominated as well as offering statements about the value of science(s) from other cultures without providing any support for the statements.  I don’t doubt that some “medicine man” (person) in some non-Western country may have observed the medicinal value of some root or herb and used it in their healings.  That doesn’t make it scientific pharmacology.  And the authors keep making these types of statements as if simply making them makes them valid criticisms of “Western”.
So, if I didn’t think much of this book as an “introduction” to science, is it of any value?  Interestingly, yes.  I found the book to be a pretty good introduction / overview of the sociological criticisms of science.   The main criticism of the book is really about how “normal” science has become “BIG science” and is funded by business and government without apparent ethical review by society.  The book doesn’t say why this is so.  Simply that it is.  And, I mostly agree with the authors even without supporting evidence.  Private profit drives most scientific development these days.  That’s just the way it is.  The authors do say that since the end of the Cold War, big science as shifted from government funding of physics to corporate funding of biology / pharmacology.  And I agree with that, too.
Final recommendation:  poor to moderate.  If you are looking for an introduction to “science” or the history of science – forget it.  This book is “almost” worthless.  The only value I see is in the “Further Reading” notes at the end of the book.  If you are looking for an overview of the politics of science, the philosophy of science, the sociology of science, feminist criticism, colonial criticism, and post-“normal” criticism – then this is the book for you (and I’d say the recommendation becomes “strong to highly”).
One final comment:  I recently read and reviewed “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” by Thomas Kuhn.  Kuhn’s book is the work that “created” the conceptual split between “revolutionary” science and “normal” science.  In the past, science was thought to progress like a river.  Kuhn’s book proposes that it more like a river with a random occurrence of waterfalls.  “Normal” science is what most scientists do every day.  The “waterfalls” are Newton, Einstein, etc. who come along with brilliant insights.  I found it amusing to see a work I’d so recently read reported as a “classic” work from the last century.  It made me appreciate Kuhn’s work even more…
.
On This Day In:
2019	I Wish This Were More True
2018	Used To Rejection
	Day 16: Looking Ahead (Just A Little)
2017	Tonight
	I Rejoice
2016	Conscientious Courage
	Speaking Of Which…
2015	The Beautiful Snow
2014	Nurtured By The Voices
2013	Précis
2012	Fear And Understanding
2011	Just Being Human

Read Full Post »

Normal Scientific Assumptions

Normal science, the activity in which most scientists inevitably spend almost all their time, is predicated on the assumption that the scientific community knows what the world is like.  Much of the success of the enterprise derives from the community’s willingness to defend that assumption, if necessary at considerable cost.
—   Thomas S. Kuhn
From his book:   “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions“
.
On This Day In:
2019	Close Change
2018	Don’t Break It
2017	Representative Government For The 99%
2016	Trying To Ignite Ice
2015	Or Increasingly Unwilling To Pay For…
2014	Returning Time
2013	Gentle Invitation
2012	Pleading The Insanity Defense
2011	Graduations And Conservatives
	The Big Sin

Read Full Post »