Comments on: The Structure of Social Revolutions

By: scwizard

scwizard — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 07:34:43 +0000

What are some specific things that have been whitewashed from textbooks that you think shouldn't have? .-= scwizard´s last blog ..D&D! =-.

By: Elly

Elly — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 09:55:54 +0000

@Oliver: Surprisingly, most of the scientists I know are quite comfortable and aware of this. Gravity actually got proven wrong* a couple years ago, which pleases me to no end, “well, yes, it’s just a theory, but so is gravity” having been a pet phrase of mine for quite some time :)

*well, more accurately, “incomplete”. It apparently doesn’t work on the quantum scale, and I believe also does funny things on the scale of universes.

Elizabeth Gould is a nice example of both the built-in inertia that science experiences, as well as the system’s ability to overcome such :)

By: Marvelous Monday! : Wicked Whimsy

Marvelous Monday! : Wicked Whimsy — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 13:04:30 +0000

[...] From Pace & Kyeli (who, by the way, I met on Saturday and were probably some of the nicest people ever): the structure of social revolutions. [...]

By: Oliver Danni

Oliver Danni — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 19:51:04 +0000

Eeek! Scientific progress looks a lot like barbed wire.

People sometimes get very upset with me when I remind them that it used to be a “scientific fact” that the earth was flat and that leeches were a good medicinal strategy. Science CHANGES, and it is also not the only way to explain things. It is A way to explain things, and it is often a very useful way, but it is not the only way.
.-= Oliver Danni´s last blog ..no more Live. =-.

By: Pace

Pace — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 15:17:14 +0000

@Elly: I guess we disagree. (:

@Winson: The trick, though, is that science itself defines what counts as a valid explanation. It’s circular.

@Inge: Welcome! What field are you in, out of curiosity?

By: Inge

Inge — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 13:17:16 +0000

Brilliant! Have to read those books.

I’m a scientist who is about to hang up the lab coat (for various reasons, including being in a field that experiences the first stages of paradigm war) and join in on the social revolution. Looking forward to it!

By: Winson

Winson — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 11:03:01 +0000

Sometimes people consider Science is explanation, but myth is something cannot be explain. When one try to proof something, things might happen just like that.

By: Elly

Elly — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 08:01:59 +0000

Erm… there’s plenty of research on Telepathy. The badly done science manages to support the point, and the well done science mostly says it’s complete bullshit. There’s been quite a few studies, and a number of meta-studies in this area.

Certainly, science has it’s biases, but the system also overcomes such things (Elizabeth Gould is my personal hero here: http://mantic-angel.livejournal.com/202720.html)

We don’t whitewash science, we just don’t bother teaching much of what we’ve found was wrong. There’s plenty of literature still out there on Aether theory and Creationism if you’re interested. You can still find the original theory of gravity that Newton taught (heck, that’s still taught today!). Especially once you get in to the advanced stuff (Quantum Mechanics is FUN here) there’s all sorts of controversies and competing paradigms to be taught, and a fairly heavy emphasis on what we DON’T know.

It’s like arguing we’re “whitewashing” mathematics by not teaching the slide ruler…

Oddly, I’ve found people actually often have amazingly flexible worldviews, if you know how to teach and communicate well. Quantum tunneling and polar geometry are both tons of fun to teach, since they involve all sorts of utterly impossible things :)