Contrasting views of science: Popper vs. Kuhn
Sir Karl Popper
Sir Karl Popper was a member of the Vienna
Circle in the earlier part of the 20th century.
For Sir Karl, science should be interpreted
logically and not psychologically.
Science was “subjectless” – in other words,
independent of the psychological dispositions of scientists or
particular social contexts.
The validity of a proposition is not sociologically determined.
“The logic of science does not rest on taste.”
Does a theory explain what we can observe accurately and
reliably? Scientific explanation has a logical character.
According to his “falsification hypothesis” (Is the claim stated in
such a way as to inform us of the procedures that would
unequivocally establish the claim as false if it is, indeed, false?)
The concept of “procedures” means the logical, syntactical
procedures implied in stating the claim and in tying it to the
observational domain to which it refers.
The goal of a scientific theory is to explain what we observe with
accuracy and reliability. It must be testable.
The theory will help us know more about the world and predict
how it will behave.
Thomas Kuhn
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962)
Paradigm  Normal Science  Anomaly  Revolution
Paradigm: A universally recognizable scientific achievement that,
for a time, provides model problems and solutions to a
community of practitioners. It is more global than a theory and
includes: laws, theories, application and instrumentation.
During different periods of science, certain perspectives held
sway over the thinking of researchers. A particular work may
“define the legitimate problems and methods of a research field
for succeeding generations of practitioners.”
For example: Aristotle’s Physica, Newton’s Principles and Opticks,
Franklin’s Electricity, Lavoiseur’s Chemistry, and Lyells’
Geology.
1. Their intellectual achievement was sufficiently unprecedented
to attract an enduring group of adherents away from
competing modes of scientific activity.
2. Their achievements were sufficiently open-ended to leave all
sorts of problems for the redefined group of practitioners to
resolve.
The commitment is therefore “conceptual, theoretical,
instrumental and methodological.”
A paradigm is “the source of the methods, problem-field and
standards of solution accepted by any mature scientific
community at any given time permitting selection, evaluation,
and criticism.”
Normal science: Working within and in the light of the paradigm,
making it more and more explicit and precise, actualizing its initial
promise by extending the knowledge of those facts that the paradigm
displays as particularly revealing, by increasing the extent of the
match between those facts and the paradigm’s predictions, and by
further articulation of the paradigm itself. This leads to research
firmly based upon one or more past scientific achievements as
revealed in text books, articles, and so forth.
Anomaly: In the course of such articulation, however,
“anomalies” arise which, after repeated efforts to resolve them
have failed, gives birth to the kind of situation in which a
scientific revolution can take place.
Revolution:
Scientific
revolutions
are
“non-cumulative
developmental episodes in which an older paradigm is replaced
in whole or part by a new one.” This is a new coherent and
unified viewpoint, a disciplinary Zeitgeist. It is a radical change
in theory that comes from different assumptions and an
alternate viewpoint.
There is a social process underlying this development which
reflects the interaction of competing research groups and
communities.
Innovative scholars generally come from the periphery of scholarly
communities because their ideas threaten accepted assumptions
and theories (e.g., Einstein).
Problem: How do people who hold to different paradigms
communicate?
Kuhn differs from the positivist Vienna Circle who separate “fact”
(observation or operation) from “interpretation” thus preserving the
“objectivity” of science.
Kuhn emphasizes the dependence on what counts as a “fact,”
“problem,” or “solution to a problem” on presuppositions – in other
words, on a sociological aspect.
Kuhn attacks “development-by-accumulation” views of science
which hold that science progresses linearly by accumulation of
theory-independent facts. Older theories give way successively to
wider, more inclusive ones.
He believes that we progress intellectually through stages of
development. This can be related to Piaget’s Stage Theory account
of cognitive development in children.
The main concept of Equilibration which reflects the interaction of
Assimilation and Accommodation processes.
Assimilation – decode an event in terms of existing cognitive
schemas.
Accommodation – adjust to the unique features of an event by
adopting different concepts and interpretive processes.
Science can be understood to move from paradigm to paradigm in
the same stochastic manner that children move between stages of
cognitive development:
Sensory-motor, Preoperational, Concrete Operational, and Formal
Operational.