Dr. Otter – Myah Mahayri

Dr. Otter talked to us about how some people worshiped the enlightenment period, while some people were worried that science would cause great destruction. For example, the famous novel “Frankenstein” was a way to convince people that science can go wrong.  Dr. Otter talked to us about all these different scientific texts throughout the centuries; this book is what lead up to Kuhn’s book.  One book that stood out was “Genesis and Development of a scientific Fact” by Ludwik Fleck. Fleck wrote this book in  1935, Thomas Kuhn wrote the forward to this book. He worked as a medical doctor and researched Syphilis. Since Ludwig was Jewish, he was imprisoned in a concentration camp. It’s awful to think about how so many Jewish scientists were imprisoned and killed just because of their religion. —-

“The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” was explained to us; Dr. Otter told us that this book is cited a lot in modern day science. He asked what we thought was a paradigm shift, and we agreed that it a set of scientific thoughts. Kuhn talks about a number of examples of paradigms such as heliocentric cosmos, plate tectonics, the evolution of natural selection, and much more! I thought it was crazy how some people went extreme measures to prove that their paradigm was correct, such as the guy who thought HIV doesn’t cause AIDS and injected himself with HIV.

Normal Science is the “everyday work” of scientist but according to Kuhn, it was an anomaly. Anomalies are facts that don’t fit into established paradigms. They tend to throw existing paradigms into doubt. Some examples of anomalies are Bigfoot, UFOs, and fossils. When an accumulation of anomalies gather they tend to lead to the abandonment of the old paradigm and replace it with a new one. An example is during the 19th century and the discovery of fossils. The discovery of fossils leads to the paradigm shift that these giants lived long ago. Some people can’t accept the paradigm shift, causing a  never-ending battle between the old paradigm and a new paradigm. Kuhn argued that the paradigm is not perfect. People Scientists don’t just follow paradigms because they believe its true. They are emotional, socially, and financially connected to them. Kuhn also said the paradigms are incommensurable. You cannot believe two at the same time! When a paradigm dies, the world view of it dies too.

 

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *