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Von: James Bowery <jabow...@gmail.com>
An: vortex-l@eskimo.com
Gesendet: 21:58 Freitag, 25.Mai 2012
Betreff: Re: [Vo]:Tritium in Ni-H LENR
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On Thu, May 24, 2012 at 10:56 PM, Eric Walker <eric.wal...@gmail.com> wrote:
Kuhn understood that scientists are emotional creatures, given to biases and
fads of various kinds, and that this makes even the hard sciences an eminently
social endeavor.
Its far worse than Kuhn indicates. He misdiagnoses the problem.
Its not, primarily, a problem with pathway dependence in neurological
development.
Its primarily a problem with financial dependence on political institutions.
I wrote about this in an essay titled Yeoman As the Foundation of Scientific
Revolutions.
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James, Eric
interesting take,
but let me add some remarks:
There are considerable differences between a)Italian, b)French, c)British,
d)German/Austrian/Swiss, e)American developments of science/technology, and
those well play into the arts and other endeavors.
See eg
Leonardo da Vinci(a), Alesandro Volta(a) , Paracelsus(d), Fraunhofer(d),
Alexander v. Humboldt(d), Lavoisier and his wife(b), Benjamin
Franklin(e),Joseph Priestley(c), Thomas Newcomen/James Watt(c).
In the 18th century it became fashionable for the bourgeois and noble classes
to in France and Britain to watch chemical experiments like in a theater.
One early case being the 'Magdeburg hemispheres' in 1652.
(...Von Guericke's demonstration was performed on 8 May 1654 in front of the
Reichstag and the Emperor Ferdinand III in Regensburg.)
What I want to stress is, that one needs three aspects for any societal force
to take effect:
(in this case 'experimentation' aimed at 'discovery')
i) persons capable to perform this
ii) a public (occasionally including the ruling emperors) interested in that
iii) a (use or status) value, ofcourse connected to (ii)
To make the story short:
Now map this to late 20th/21st century science and technology:
It became so complicated and expensive that rarely a a single inventor or
creative mind can achieve significant breakthroughs anymore. Think computer
chips or genetics or modern cars or astrophysics or modern medicine or even
late (financial) capitalism with its growth paradigm.
This is a team-play directed by a set of foundational/organizing paradigms.
Like in ancient religion those paradigms are controlled by a 'priesthood', eg
peer reviewers ,department heads with access to capital inflow and/or power.
I agree that Thomas Kuhn is not uptodate anymore and also not Paul Feyerabend
(against method/epistemological anarchism), although I somewhat sympathize with
him.
The reason seems to be clear:
Crashing a central paradigm tends to have catastrophic consequences, so 'we'
stick even to the wrong paradigm, for a fear of the alternative void.
Best example nowadys: the growth paradigm.
Everybody in his right mind knows that it is not even simply wrong, but
destructive, but nevertheless the deciders stick to it, and 'we' let it happen.
Do'nt know who said that:
"We tend to be directed by what we are used to, not what is true."
Sounds about right to me.
Guenther
