http://www.dinocrat.com/archives/2007/10/22/from-a-scientist-who-believes-in-the-scientific-method/ Wed, 07 Jan 2009 23:24:38 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.3 http://www.dinocrat.com/archives/2007/10/22/from-a-scientist-who-believes-in-the-scientific-method/#comment-302053 doc molloy Thu, 25 Oct 2007 23:35:38 +0000 http://www.dinocrat.com/archives/2007/10/22/from-a-scientist-who-believes-in-the-scientific-method/#comment-302053 “Wolves deceive their prey, don’t they?” one said to me recently. Therefore, biologically, he said, we are justified in exaggerating to get society to change. As Thomas Kuhn once noted ” Normal scientific activity, the activity in which most scientists inevitably spend almost all their time, is predicted 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 at considerable cost. Normal science, for example, often suppresses fundamental novelties because they are necessarily subversive to its basic commitments.” If the critical scientist is not drawn back into the fold, he/she will be forced to join another more congenial community, or in some spectacular instances to create a new one. Now, some might say that global warming/climate change is a paradigm shift or scientific revolution. But with big Al and the cunning wolf pack i just see a slick, snake oil salesman and a clever side show, but no real scientific/philosophical debate. What we are seeing is Planck’s dictum: “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” Welcome to the Al Gore et al indoctrination program. “Wolves deceive their prey, don’t they?” one said to me recently. Therefore, biologically, he said, we are justified in exaggerating to get society to change. As Thomas Kuhn once noted ” Normal scientific activity, the activity in which most scientists inevitably spend almost all their time, is predicted 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 at considerable cost. Normal science, for example, often suppresses fundamental novelties because they are necessarily subversive to its basic commitments.”
If the critical scientist is not drawn back into the fold, he/she will be forced to join another more congenial community, or in some spectacular instances to create a new one.
Now, some might say that global warming/climate change is a paradigm shift or scientific revolution. But with big Al and the cunning wolf pack i just see a slick, snake oil salesman and a clever side show, but no real scientific/philosophical debate. What we are seeing is Planck’s dictum: “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” Welcome to the Al Gore et al indoctrination program.

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