Contrasting views of science: Popper vs. Kuhn

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Contrasting views of science Popper vs. Kuhn
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Sir Karl Popper Sir Karl Popper was a member of
the Vienna Circle in the earlier part of the 20th
century. For Sir Karl, science should be
interpreted logically and not psychologically. Sc
ience was subjectless in other words,
independent of the psychological dispositions of
scientists or particular social contexts. The
validity of a proposition is not sociologically
determined. The logic of science does not rest
on taste. Does a theory explain what we can
observe accurately and reliably? Scientific
explanation has a logical character.
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According to his falsification hypothesis (Is
the claim stated in such a way as to inform us of
the procedures that would unequivocally establish
the claim as false if it is, indeed, false?) The
concept of procedures means the logical,
syntactical procedures implied in stating the
claim and in tying it to the observational domain
to which it refers. The goal of a scientific
theory is to explain what we observe with
accuracy and reliability. It must be testable.
The theory will help us know more about the
world and predict how it will behave.
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Thomas Kuhn The Structure of Scientific
Revolutions (1962)
Paradigm ? Normal Science ? Anomaly ?
Revolution Paradigm A universally recognizable
scientific achievement that, for a time, provides
model problems and solutions to a community of
practitioners. It is more global than a theory
and includes laws, theories, application and
instrumentation. During different periods of
science, certain perspectives held sway over the
thinking of researchers. A particular work may
define the legitimate problems and methods of a
research field for succeeding generations of
practitioners.
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• For example Aristotles Physica, Newtons
  Principles and Opticks, Franklins Electricity,
  Lavoiseurs Chemistry, and Lyells Geology.
• Their intellectual achievement was sufficiently
  unprecedented to attract an enduring group of
  adherents away from competing modes of scientific
  activity.
• 2. Their achievements were sufficiently
  open-ended to leave all sorts of problems for the
  redefined group of practitioners to resolve.
• The commitment is therefore conceptual,
  theoretical, instrumental and methodological.
• A paradigm is the source of the methods,
  problem-field and standards of solution accepted
  by any mature scientific community at any given
  time permitting selection, evaluation, and
  criticism.

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Normal science Working within and in the light
of the paradigm, making it more and more explicit
and precise, actualizing its initial promise by
extending the knowledge of those facts that the
paradigm displays as particularly revealing, by
increasing the extent of the match between those
facts and the paradigms predictions, and by
further articulation of the paradigm itself. This
leads to research firmly based upon one or more
past scientific achievements as revealed in text
books, articles, and so forth. Anomaly In the
course of such articulation, however, anomalies
arise which, after repeated efforts to resolve
them have failed, gives birth to the kind of
situation in which a scientific revolution can
take place. Revolution Scientific revolutions
are non-cumulative developmental episodes in
which an older paradigm is replaced in whole or
part by a new one. This is a new coherent and
unified viewpoint, a disciplinary Zeitgeist. It
is a radical change in theory that comes from
different assumptions and an alternate viewpoint.
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There is a social process underlying this
development which reflects the interaction of
competing research groups and communities. Innova
tive scholars generally come from the periphery
of scholarly communities because their ideas
threaten accepted assumptions and theories (e.g.,
Einstein). Problem How do people who hold to
different paradigms communicate? Kuhn differs
from the positivist Vienna Circle who separate
fact (observation or operation) from
interpretation thus preserving the
objectivity of science. Kuhn emphasizes the
dependence on what counts as a fact, problem,
or solution to a problem on presuppositions
in other words, on a sociological aspect.
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Kuhn attacks development-by-accumulation views
of science which hold that science progresses
linearly by accumulation of theory-independent
facts. Older theories give way successively to
wider, more inclusive ones. He believes that we
progress intellectually through stages of
development. This can be related to Piagets
Stage Theory account of cognitive development in
children. The main concept of Equilibration
which reflects the interaction of Assimilation
and Accommodation processes. Assimilation
decode an event in terms of existing cognitive
schemas. Accommodation adjust to the unique
features of an event by adopting different
concepts and interpretive processes.
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Science can be understood to move from paradigm
to paradigm in the same stochastic manner that
children move between stages of cognitive
development Sensory-motor, Preoperational,
Concrete Operational, and Formal Operational.