Why (science) world is afraid of paradigm changes?

[illuusio]

To OP, it seems that it is custom here that when theory gets to it's limits then defenses kick in. Sad but true. "Respected" physicist won't take any risks with anything beyond the accepted "truth".

[mississippichem]

To OP, it seems that it is custom here that when theory gets to it's limits then defenses kick in. Sad but true. "Respected" physicist won't take any risks with anything beyond the accepted "truth".

 

I'll bite, though I don't really know why I'm wasting my time.

 

You clearly don't read the peer reviewed literature. I do daily, and I'd be willing to bet my car title that ajb, swansont and the other physics PhDs (I don't have a PhD for the record, only a B.S.) around here do often as well. What evidence do you have of your assertion? New ideas are accepted all the time. You act as though science hadn't progressed in the last century.

[illuusio]

I'll bite, though I don't really know why I'm wasting my time.

 

You clearly don't read the peer reviewed literature. I do daily, and I'd be willing to bet my car title that ajb, swansont and the other physics PhDs (I don't have a PhD for the record, only a B.S.) around here do often as well. What evidence do you have of your assertion? New ideas are accepted all the time. You act as though science hadn't progressed in the last century.

 

I'm referring major paradigm changes. Science world is screaming and kicking all the way into new paradigm, always has.

[mississippichem]

I'm referring major paradigm changes. Science world is screaming and kicking all the way into new paradigm, always has.

 

Let's just please not hijack this thread further.

[illuusio]

Let's just please not hijack this thread further.

 

I rest my case I open new topic in Speculations on this one.

[illuusio]

From times of Antique Greek (science) world has been afraid of paradigm changes. Why? Is current paradigm some kind of religion or something? People with different views are seen ridiculous, crazy and so on. Sometimes they are even killed. This is very interesting question and to me very personal

[John Cuthber]

It's not fear. It's just that most people who want to "change the paradigm" are wrong, but don't realise how much evidence there is for the current model and how well it works.

"Sometimes they are even killed. "

Who (in modern times)?

Edited October 16, 2012 by John Cuthber

[illuusio]

It's not fear. It's just that most people who want to "change the paradigm" are wrong, but don't realise how much evidence there is for the current model and how well it works.

"Sometimes they are even killed. "

Who (in modern times)?

 

In modern times I don't know (maybe Ning Li?). But for example during Stalin's era and WWII there were scientists killed because of their different thoughts on scientific matters. Before "modern times" killing was convenient way to get rid of people with different thoughts. Milder way was Church's ban. Before that witch hunts were common and before that just giving poison or using sword was normal procedure.

 

Thank XXX we are living in modern times Now we use other means which are not so effective outside the science world.

 

 

[ajb]

From times of Antique Greek (science) world has been afraid of paradigm changes. Why? Is current paradigm some kind of religion or something? People with different views are seen ridiculous, crazy and so on. Sometimes they are even killed. This is very interesting question and to me very personal

 

We all welcome the next paradigm shift, but such works are rare. A piece of work or works that alters how the next generation of scientists thinks is by its very nature a rate thing.

 

Examples here include quantum mechanics, special and general relativity, the renormalisation of QED and Hubble's law. All these radically changed the way we do physics when they were discovered.

 

The historical issues before this I am unfamiliar with.

[Ophiolite]

From times of Antique Greek (science) world has been afraid of paradigm changes. Why? Is current paradigm some kind of religion or something? People with different views are seen ridiculous, crazy and so on. Sometimes they are even killed. This is very interesting question and to me very personal

Clearly you inhabit an entirely different world to me.

 

When I began my university course in the 1960s, according to the texbooks the Earth's continents were fixed. True, there was a hint of a wobble here and there - Holmes in Principles of Physical Geology, a page in de Sitter's Structural Geology - but little else. When I graduated in 1970 the plate tectonic revolution was already over in the pages of the refereed journals.

 

At the start of the century, overwhelmed by mutation and Mendelian genetics, Darwinism was on its knees. Forty years later the Modern Synthesis had blended the two, almost seamlessly. Yet such were the continued revelations of how evolution works that many current researchers want to give the whole process a new name and claim it is a new paradigm. (Semantics!)

 

It took less than ten years from the collection of moon rocks by the Apollo astronauts to general acceptance that the moon formed following a collision of a Mars sized planet with the proto-Earth.

 

Science and scientists welcome paradigms changes. They make life more interesting. They validate the reason the scientists became scientists in the first place. The only people who seem to object are those people who come to the party with an idea, but no evidence.

[ajb]

Good examples Ophiolite.

[illuusio]

Those examples tell only that paradigms do change, slowly but surely. It would be very interesting to hear the story behind those examples I mean in personal level.

Edited October 16, 2012 by illuusio

[Ophiolite]

Those examples tell only that paradigms do change, slowly but surely. It would be very interesting to hear the story behind those examples I mean in personal level.

It would be interesting, but it wouldn't change anything.

 

If we consider plate tectonics some researchers were intrigued from the outset, most simply ignored the occassional paper on the topic because it was not relevant to their work. How was plate tectonics, at that point going to impact on a researcher who was interested in sexual dimorphism in Jurassic ammonites? How could it influence the thinking of a sedimentologist who was interested in better implementing the Huttonian principle when interpreting Devonian sandstones? Would plate tectonics aid the palaeontologist who saught better discrimination of Carboniferous subdivisions on a global basis? (All, by the way, real personal stories.)

 

The inherent resistance you think may have been there was minimal. Of course there were hold outs like Carey who pursued an expanding Earth hypothesis - one that had always been well down the league of plausible theories for orogenesis. But as the evidence not only mounted, but became readily visible to all, researchers began to see how the concept could be relevant to their field. Faced with overwhelming evidence, in the words of the Borg, resistance was futile.

[swansont]

!

Moderator Note

Posts 1-5 were moved from the "What is the mechanism for force transmission" thread

[illuusio]

It would be interesting, but it wouldn't change anything.

 

 

 

No it wouldn't change anything but that's not my point. The point is, individuals, who ignite the paradigm change will experience high level resistance at the beginning. More fundamental the issue is more resistance there will be.

 

I mean even evidence won't do anything. Bruce DePalma is a quite excellent example of that. I don't refer to his N-machine stuff but only to rotational experiments.

Edited October 16, 2012 by illuusio

[Ophiolite]

Read my words. There was little or no resistance to the development of plate tectonics. It took barely fifteen years. It was rightly described as a revolution, not because of massive fights between protagonists, but because it occured so rapidly.

[illuusio]

Read my words. There was little or no resistance to the development of plate tectonics. It took barely fifteen years. It was rightly described as a revolution, not because of massive fights between protagonists, but because it occured so rapidly.

 

Ignoring is also a form of resistance.

[Ophiolite]

Ignoring is also a form of resistance.

Don't talk crap. Provide an example of the plate tectonic revolution being deliberately ignored. Ignoring something because it is not on ones horizon, does not impact ones current specialist area of research, is not resistance. Resistance is deliberate refusal to consider information.

 

I gave you three examples of real geologists who initially ignored the coming plate tectonic revolution because it did not yet impinge on their speciality. To describe this as resistance is ludicrous. You do not have a leg to stand on here. I have demonstrated with three examples that your hypothesis is unfounded. End of story. Either accept this or go indulge your fantasy elsewhere.

[swansont]

No it wouldn't change anything but that's not my point. The point is, individuals, who ignite the paradigm change will experience high level resistance at the beginning. More fundamental the issue is more resistance there will be.

Waiting for experimental confirmation is not resistance, per se. It's the natural course of science, and it takes a little time. Eddington went out and did an experiment to test General relativity basically at the first opportunity to do so. DeSitter tested (and confirmed) the constancy of the one-way speed of light in 1913. That's pretty quick if you remember that it takes time to set experiments up and perform them.

 

That's resistance?

[illuusio]

Don't talk crap. Provide an example of the plate tectonic revolution being deliberately ignored. Ignoring something because it is not on ones horizon, does not impact ones current specialist area of research, is not resistance. Resistance is deliberate refusal to consider information.

 

I gave you three examples of real geologists who initially ignored the coming plate tectonic revolution because it did not yet impinge on their speciality. To describe this as resistance is ludicrous. You do not have a leg to stand on here. I have demonstrated with three examples that your hypothesis is unfounded. End of story. Either accept this or go indulge your fantasy elsewhere.

 

 

I don't know that field enough to say anything of it or it's events. So to you, science is an utopia where everything go smoothly, right? Are you ignoring some cases in history of science, specially in case of major paradigm changes. Tectonic revolution is a minor event.

 

Waiting for experimental confirmation is not resistance, per se. It's the natural course of science, and it takes a little time. Eddington went out and did an experiment to test General relativity basically at the first opportunity to do so. DeSitter tested (and confirmed) the constancy of the one-way speed of light in 1913. That's pretty quick if you remember that it takes time to set experiments up and perform them.

 

That's resistance?

 

LOL Of course not. But when you have an opportunity to see the evidence and you still ignore it, that's a resistance!

[Phi for All]

So to you, science is an utopia where everything go smoothly, right? Are you ignoring some cases in history of science, specially in case of major paradigm changes.

That's a childish assertion. Why would you go from "Science resists all change" to "Science is a smoothly running Utopia"? You're being an extremist.

 

Science is about skepticism in part because new ideas NEED to go under the microscope, need to be tested and re-tested before anyone even thinks about accepting them as valid. Please note that I said "valid", not "true". We need that skepticism because we want to trust an explanation, NOT "believe" an explanation.

[Ophiolite]

I don't know that field enough to say anything of it or it's events.

So why are you presuming to comment on it?

 

So to you, science is an utopia where everything go smoothly, right?

Please identify which sentence, phrase, post or paragraph of mines implies that I think this is the case. I am simply contradicting, with examples, your ineffectual suggestion that scientists are afraid of paradigm changes.

 

Are you ignoring some cases in history of science, specially in case of major paradigm changes.

Your claim is that in today's world science is afraid of paradigm changes. I am sure there are some historical instances of such resistance. Perhaps you can bring some Victorian examples to the table. I'm not sure what relevance they would have to discussing the attitudes of today's scientists.

 

 

Tectonic revolution is a minor event.

You seriously do not want to be making an ignorant remark like that to a geologist.

 

. But when you have an opportunity to see the evidence and you still ignore it, that's a resistance!

All scientists have the opportunity to read practically any published peer reviewed journal. They do not have the opportunity to read all of them. Focusing on those which relate to their speciality is not resisting a paeadigm shift.

[illuusio]

That's a childish assertion. Why would you go from "Science resists all change" to "Science is a smoothly running Utopia"? You're being an extremist.

 

Science is about skepticism in part because new ideas NEED to go under the microscope, need to be tested and re-tested before anyone even thinks about accepting them as valid. Please note that I said "valid", not "true". We need that skepticism because we want to trust an explanation, NOT "believe" an explanation.

 

Ok, my title is a bit too extreme. Being afraid might be something else, reluctant maybe? Anyway, does it make me an extremist if Ophiolite gave few examples where science world might haven't been very reluctant? And I don't think that science resists all change. But in case of a major paradigm change there is a LOT of resistance in all levels.

 

Science should be about skepticism but it's also something else, in some cases, reluctance. What else could it be, for example case Bruce DePalma

 

 

 

You seriously do not want to be making an ignorant remark like that to a geologist.

 

 

Focusing on those which relate to their speciality is not resisting a paeadigm shift.

 

Well, sorry all geologist out there! Just making a point here.

 

But in case when scientist reads a paper suggesting (with evidence) that there is totally new paradigm (better one) existing but still refuses to acknowledge it... well That's when (s)he is totally ignoring the facts and to me, it's weird. Is (s)he afraid? maybe.

 

 

[ajb]

Is (s)he afraid? maybe.

 

One would be afraid of investing time and effort into ideas that are unlikely to succeed.

[illuusio]

One would be afraid of investing time and effort into ideas that are unlikely to succeed.

 

But analysis of success probability is distorted because of personal fears. And ignoring the evidence is stupidity.