Nature magazine has published the Google Scholar top-100 cited list, and near the top is the 1962 philosophy book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. It popularized the paradigm shift.
This book dominated modern philosophy of science, but it is garbage. Its main arguments are to deny that science makes progress toward truth, deny that new scientific theories are adopted from quantitative evidence, and deny that scientists are rational.
Philosophers and other anti-science academics love this book because it undermines the validity of science. Science crackpots also love this book also, because it presents science as driven by fads. Instead of arguing that their theories are superior in some way, they can just gripe that they are out of fashion.
This site has also made testimony many times about 'pseudo science' that parades around as actual evidence or truth (quantum computing?). I'm afraid that what passes for much of today's science is no more 'pure' than it was over a hundred years ago.
ReplyDeleteNo human system is immune to subversion or corruption. Ideals of any kind (scientific or not) are also quite worthless if they aren't practiced vigilantly.
Deceit, ego, social manipulation/engineering, monetary gain, personal ambition, political manipulation, vanity, vanity, vanity, and even more ego, influence every scientific field just about as much as any other human endeavor (Art, Politics, Law, Architecture, History, Language, Culture, Technology, War, Medicine, Engineering). Let's stop pretending science isn't shaped and defined by the very human and sometimes irrational natures of the people who profess to practice and teach it.