Context for Science Arguments: Quotes
Author: Marjorie Orr / Various. Date: 25 Jan 2007
OLIVER SACKS: "A discovery is premature if its implications cannot be connected by a series of simple logical steps to canonical, or generally accepted knowledge."
KOEHLER: "Each science has a sort of attic into which things are almost automatically pushed that cannot be used at the moment, that do not quite fit …… We are constantly putting aside, unused, a wealth of valuable material [which leads to} blocking of scientific progress."
OLIVER SACKS: "In extreme cases scientific debate can threaten to destroy the belief systems of one of the antagonists, and with this, perhaps, the belief systems of the entire culture."
MAX PLANCK: "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light but rather because its opponents eventually die, a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."
KOEHLER: "Scientists tend to judge studies that support their beliefs to be more relevant, methodologically sound and clearly presented than otherwise identical studies that opposed their beliefs."
THOMAS KUHN: The author of “The Structure of the Scientific Revolution” punctured the notion that scientific change is a strictly rational process and that science was not a steady acquisition of knowledge. Instead he wrote “ it is a series of peaceful interludes punctuated by intellectually violent revolutions .. (where) one conceptual world view is replaced by another." He argued that the typical scientist was not an objective free thinker and sceptic. Rather he was a somewhat conservative individual who accepted what he was taught. These scientists tended to resist research that might signal the development of a new paradigm. But situations arose that the current paradigm could not account for or that contradicted it. Then he said a revolutionary would appear, often a young scientist and not deeply indoctrinated in the accepted theories and sweep the old paradigm away. These revolutions he said came only after long periods of tradition-bound normal science. “Frameworks must be lived with and explored before they can be broken.” The new paradigm cannot build on the one that precedes it, he maintained. It can only supplant it.
ERNEST BECKER: "We don’t want to admit that we are fundamentally dishonest about reality, that we do not really control our lives."
GUINON: "When everyone is against you – you are absolutely wrong – or absolutely right."
SCHOPENHAUER: "All truth passes through three stages. First it is ridiculed,
Second it is violently opposed, Third it is accepted as self evident."
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OLIVER SACKS: "A discovery is premature if its implications cannot be connected by a series of simple logical steps to canonical, or generally accepted knowledge."
KOEHLER: "Each science has a sort of attic into which things are almost automatically pushed that cannot be used at the moment, that do not quite fit …… We are constantly putting aside, unused, a wealth of valuable material [which leads to} blocking of scientific progress."
OLIVER SACKS: "In extreme cases scientific debate can threaten to destroy the belief systems of one of the antagonists, and with this, perhaps, the belief systems of the entire culture."
MAX PLANCK: "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light but rather because its opponents eventually die, a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."
KOEHLER: "Scientists tend to judge studies that support their beliefs to be more relevant, methodologically sound and clearly presented than otherwise identical studies that opposed their beliefs."
THOMAS KUHN: The author of “The Structure of the Scientific Revolution” punctured the notion that scientific change is a strictly rational process and that science was not a steady acquisition of knowledge. Instead he wrote “ it is a series of peaceful interludes punctuated by intellectually violent revolutions .. (where) one conceptual world view is replaced by another." He argued that the typical scientist was not an objective free thinker and sceptic. Rather he was a somewhat conservative individual who accepted what he was taught. These scientists tended to resist research that might signal the development of a new paradigm. But situations arose that the current paradigm could not account for or that contradicted it. Then he said a revolutionary would appear, often a young scientist and not deeply indoctrinated in the accepted theories and sweep the old paradigm away. These revolutions he said came only after long periods of tradition-bound normal science. “Frameworks must be lived with and explored before they can be broken.” The new paradigm cannot build on the one that precedes it, he maintained. It can only supplant it.
ERNEST BECKER: "We don’t want to admit that we are fundamentally dishonest about reality, that we do not really control our lives."
GUINON: "When everyone is against you – you are absolutely wrong – or absolutely right."
SCHOPENHAUER: "All truth passes through three stages. First it is ridiculed,
Second it is violently opposed, Third it is accepted as self evident."
hide Marjorie's posts
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