Date: Tue, 30 Jul 1996 04:01:16 -0500 Subject: Re: Buddy, can youse paradigm? Jeff J: >Whether one agrees with his philosophy of science or not, Kuhn's work in >the history of >science shows that it is (usually) the fine points often mistaken for >stagnation that >move science along. This was well known long before Kuhn. The attitude social scientists take here is rather reminiscent of that of the explorers who "discovered" places like darkest Africa, except that all they have to do to make their discoveries is to ask someone else. >-The other is Relativity, the result of the crisis produced by >Black Body radiation and the photoelectric effect. This is wrong. Relativity had nothing to do with either black body radiation or the photoelectric effect. It came out of the inconsistency between Maxwell's equations and Newtonian mechanics and, experimentally, >from results such as that on the aberration of stellar light, Fizeau's on the speed of light in a moving medium, and the Michelson-Morley interferometry results on the nonexistence of the ether. Black body radiation and the photoelectric effect were both involved in the creation of quantum theory. > I'd be quite suspicious of anyone >who claims that science is through with discovery because it is not in a >state of crisis. Me too. Rahul --- from list marxism2-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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