I argue here that Kuhn’s observations of scientific practice are inadequate as a rational take on scientific nature. Kuhn’s reliance on human psychology during ‘normal science’ causes him to confuse sociology with logical development.
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Before the writings of Thomas Kuhn, science was generally seen as the cumulative growth of human knowledge. Kuhn was opposed to this perspective; he believed that science was divided into what he called ‘paradigms’ – periods alternating between stability (‘normal science’) and crisis. Kuhn (1962, pg. 2) would have observed that methods such as Popper’s (1959) falsification or confirmationism from Carnap’s (1950) work on inductive logic were not linearly sustained throughout history, citing the existence of complex phenomena, such as electricity, light or chemical change whose natures could not be condensed into true-false statements. As it is difficult to investigate every individual discovery and observation, Kuhn maintained that a broader perspective of science was needed.
Kuhn perceived science to be evolving through a cycling of paradigms. A ‘paradigm’, Kuhn describes, is a shared scientific narrative that dictates how science is to be interpreted and carried out. Scientific paradigms only subsist during the era in which they were prominent; they encompass all the beliefs, values, and experimental techniques held by the current scientific community. Kuhn emphasized that paradigms were very resistant to change and would not do so until crisis; when ‘competition between segments of the scientific community’ resulted in a ‘paradigm shift’ (Kuhn, 1962, pg. 8). Kuhn (1962, pg. 103) describes different paradigms as ‘incommensurable’, that is, they are radically incompatible. When a scientific ‘revolution’ occurs, a new paradigm comes into the fore that fundamentally changes the principles under which scientists in the community operate. When this occurs, communication between subsequent paradigms ceases to be meaningful.
An example Kuhn gives of a ‘cycle of paradigms’ is the different conceptualisations of light throughout history. Today we know light to be photons, a quantum entity that exists both as a wave and as a particle. In the early 19th century, however, experiments by Young and Fresnel showed that light was a transverse wave; before that still, as described by Newton, light was simply ‘material corpuscles’ (Kuhn, 1962, pg. 12). Kuhn’s examples here provide sound evidence to support the existence of paradigms; the fundamental differences of each era did have drastic implications for the respective scientific communities. It must be noted however, that this kind of radical transformation is not conserved throughout science. There have been seemingly ‘revolutionary’ scientific breakthroughs that did not have the same impact as perhaps, Einstein’s relativity had on Newtonian physics. Take Gregor Mendel’s gene for instance; it did not produce the complete overhauling of scientific tradition that Kuhn often attributes to advances of that magnitude. This may be accounted for by acknowledging that pre-Mendel, it was already known that traits were inherited from generation to generation – it was just the mechanism that needed figuring out. Nevertheless, it is unusual that there have been no biological innovations– save perhaps Darwin’s theory of evolution – that have actually caused such a dramatic ‘paradigm shift’ as predicted by Kuhn. Many other brilliant ‘paradigmatic’ insights, e.g. Crick and Watson’s discovery of the double helix DNA structure, did not produce the revolutionary impacts that Kuhn saw as standard. Perhaps we can give Kuhn the benefit of the doubt and say that molecular genetics has yet to undergo its major ‘revolution’; that the field is in an unconventionally long ‘normal research’ phase. I will explain in the following paragraph how convincing this would be, bearing in mind how Kuhn describes ‘normal science’.
Kuhn (1962, pg. 23) states that newly introduced paradigms are very limited in both scope and precision; they gain status by being more successful at solving problems than competing theories. ‘Normal science’ is the period where scientists attempt to solve these problems, striving to bring theory and fact into closer agreement – the theory being the assumed paradigmatic concepts. Kuhn (1962, pg. 52) describes normal science as a ‘puzzle-solving’ activity – “the steady extension of the scope and precision of scientific knowledge”. Advances in molecular genetics do not comply with Kuhn’s definition of normal science; there have been bursts of discoveries and inventions of techniques that propelled the field beyond the ‘steady extension’ that Kuhn depicts. The discovery of protein structure, molecular blotting techniques, and the ability to sequence genes, have all caused enormous proliferation in both the speed that ‘puzzles’ can be solved, and the number of answerable questions available. Kuhn (1962, pg. 24) also states that the aim of normal science is not to generate “new sorts of phenomena”, and instead, research during normal science tries to further articulate the theories and phenomena already supplied by the paradigm. Many innovations in molecular biology, including the examples presented above, contradict Kuhn’s descriptions here completely. The discoveries of DNA, chromosomes, nucleotide complementation, etc., were the result of deliberate efforts to determine phenomena beyond what was provided by the paradigm.
An additional problem for Kuhn is that he assumes a theoretical underpinning for all scientific enterprises. The bedrock of ‘paradigms’ and ‘normal science’ is the shared metaphysical assumptions held by the scientific community. It can be debated whether molecular biology actually has any law-like theories like those found in the physical sciences. Broadening our consideration of scientific history, not all cultures have followed the Western model of scientific tradition. The scientific practices in pre-modern China naturally subvert Kuhn’s observations. Science in pre-modern China did not think that the fundamentals of the universe were altogether relevant in the study of nature, yet this ‘disinterest’ did not inhibit their ability to keep up with and even surpass Western science (Schwartz, 1952).
“It was not that there was no order in nature for the Chinese… there was no conviction that rational personal beings would be able to spell out in their lesser earthly languages the divine code of laws...” (Needham and Wang, 1954)
There may be grounds to concede this point to Kuhn if we place pre-modern Chinese practices into the category of ‘pre-paradigm’, where there is no “implicit body of intertwined theoretical belief”, but just competing schools of thought (Kuhn, 1962, pg. 16). This, however, is unlikely given the unified philosophies held by pre-modern China (Fraser, 1986). Other than from a dubious ‘pre-paradigm’ period, the activities of scientists in pre-modern China do not conform to any of Kuhn’s descriptions of science.
Casting aside molecular genetics and pre-modern China as exceptions, there still exists a point of contention with Kuhn’s theory. His concepts work very well for examples from physics and astronomy (however few and undiversified they may be). But unfortunately for Kuhn, it is his reflection on the activity of scientists during ‘normal science’ that raises a glaring concern, as it is underpins his entire theory. Kuhn’s description of normal science often contains asides to the unwillingness of scientists to accept observations that do not fit their narrative. This unwillingness is psychological and should not be used as a universal statement about scientists and what science is. Kuhn states:
“Normal science often suppresses fundamental novelties as they are necessarily subversive.” (Kuhn, 1962, pg. 4)
and that:
“ …scientists (do not) normally aim to invent new theories, and they are often intolerant of those invented by others.” (Kuhn, 1962, pg. 24)
Even going as far as saying:
“the member of a mature scientific community is, like the typical character of Orwell’s 1984, the victim of a history rewritten by the powers that be.” (Kuhn, 1962, pg. 167)
Kuhn suggests that it is a necessary evil that observations that do not fit in with the paradigm are purposely disregarded. In doing so, rather than making a logical claim about the nature of science, Kuhn relies on a sociological explanation of how paradigms and normal science functions. If scientists suddenly became ultra-critical and intellectually honest, considering anomalies with the utmost scrutiny, then Kuhn’s concept of normal science and crisis periods would collapse under a fault of the human condition. Ultimately it is ego, narrow-mindedness, and stubborn adherence to tradition that Kuhn bases his theory on, all of which are scientifically undesirable traits and should not be seen as an unchangeable aspect of nature.
Kuhn overlooks the fields of molecular biology and is Eurocentric in his consideration of scientific practice. In doing so he constrains his theories to a subsection of science doing no justice to the inventiveness of his ideas. Kuhn also falls flat on a logical basis, using human psychology to underpin scientific enterprise.Kuhn’s strict adherence to his own anti-progressive ‘paradigm’ is comparable to scientists who refuse to acknowledge anomalies outside their respective paradigms – of whom he criticises. Although sociological analyses of science, especially in this context, seem helpful in understanding how scientific practices have evolved, it is inadequate as a rational interpretation.
(I wrote this in undergrad c. 2015 — I remember getting a comment describing the essay as ‘at times overly polemic’)
Bibliography:
Carnap, R. (1950). Logical Foundations of Probability, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Fraser, J.T., Haber, F.C. and Lawrence, N. (1986). Time, Science, and Society in China and the West, Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. 174-179.
Kuhn, T. (1962). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Needham, J., Wang, L. (1954). Science and Civilisation in China, Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.
Popper, K.R. (1959). The Logic of Scientific Discovery, London: Hutchinson & Co. Ch.1.
Schawartz, B.J. (1985). The World of Thought in Ancient China, Cambridge: BelknapPress
patrick 林香麟 