Normal Science

🔬 thomas kuhn

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOGZEZ96ynI #leiden university

For Popper, scientists are always busy trying to prove theories wrong, they are critical. Psuedoscientists are trying to protect their theories (trying to represent something as science which is not), which is different from non-science (things that are not represented as science itself).

Kuhn argues that science is not rational; it is not critical (most of the time) . If we believe that science is always critical, we are mistaking an exception for the rule.

Kuhn's Phases of Science

Every science starts at the pre-paradigmatic phase and never returns. The other phases can occur many times and can switch between phases 2-4 (normal science/crisis/revolution)

1. Pre-paradigmatic phase

Every science starts here.

2. Normal Science

Although scientists are critical about new ideas and cutting-edge theories, they are not critical about their own theories. Every field has an insurmountable amount of theories, concepts, ideas, tools that scientists take for granted when working within it (e.g. standard Latin dictionaries are good tools for translation, bodies consist of cells which contain DNA, etc.), which Kuhn denotes as a paradigm . This causes scientists to form a particular view (or lens) of the world from which they are granted the ability to do science, specifically, normal science .

- Note: It is more disturbing to consider that the opportunity for scientists to detach from this particular lens would invoke a detachment from the very paradigm upon which the science is based. I will distinguish a lens from a paradigm in that a lens applies the human traits (biases, views, axims, values, which Kuhn also points out, that differ from individual to individual).

3. Crisis

4. Scientific Revolution