From: jajohnso-AT-interserv.com
Date: Wed, 12 Jun 1996 19:03:55 -0700
Subject: Re: Schrodinger's Cat


"I can't imagine what you think you mean by "unoriginal." Science requires
as much creativity as any human endeavour, more than most. Kuhn's
characterization of "normal science" as "puzzle-solving," while it strongly
tends to trivialize the practice, is not quite the same as saying it's
about letting people show how clever they are."

Kuhn's words, not mine.  I assume he means something like Einstein, Copernicus, 
or Heisenberg when he talks of originality.  It's a bit of a high standard, I'd 
say.  But, nonetheless, Kuhn says that this is precisely what normal science is, 
primarily.  I don't think that he is trying to trivialize it myself; Kuhn, I 
believe, means only to say that much science aims mainly to prove the proven.  I 
do not think, nor do I expect that Kuhn does, that this is trivial, only that 
normal science is not the great conceptual breakthroughs, nor even the 
interesting physical discoveries (such as that of at least two planets in a 
nearby solar system) that most people think of when they talk of science.

Yours &c.,

Jeff Johnson			  "Amicus Socrates, amicus Plato,
Undergrad, Political Science		sed magis amica veritas."
Cal Poly Pomona					      --Aristotle



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