Your thoughts on Kuhn's view of science?
I was just curious what other people thought about the questions we had to answer on our last assignment about Kuhn's view of science. If science doesn't gradually bring us closer to an objective view of reality, or to Truth with a capital T, then what is its point? Why should kids want to become scientists when they grow up? Why should the government fund research? All these serious questions come up if we accept Kuhn's unique view of science.
Science is still making progress, right? Each new paradigm is better than the one before at explaining how something works. I am not sure why the notion of "Truth" matters.
I'm not so sure Kuhn would even agree that each new paradigm is making progress at explaining how things work. It seems they're at least different than the paradigms before them, but I think we'd be hard pressed to find anywhere where he says that current paradigms are much better than older ones.
Kuhn stated that science progresses through increased specialization and articulation of each newer paradigm. Even though this is not towards anything, it is a refinement of their ability to desctibe the world in which they live.
Yes, but again, what's the point of refining their ability to describe the world if it's not moving towards anything? In other words, what's the point of describing the world in scientific terms if it's ultimately not any more objective than other ways of describing the world?
"Why should kids want to become scientists when they grow up?"
Good question. Since I spent most of my education in the social science field I thought to ask some people who studied science. My wife is a high school biology teacher and daughter is a 3rd year genetics major at the U of M. Both agreed that an absolute Truth was not necessary to motivate them to gain knowledge. They understand that what we think we know today could change, but what we do know today can make a difference in how we live.
Kuhn seems to be saying that once a paradigm has shifted, it is utterly impossible to see any relevance in what work has come before it. I think this assumption is flawed. The whole notion of a paradigm to me is flawed. How can you not look to the foundation of a theory as it continues to grow stronger and develop?