From: Sengen Sun (sengensun$##$yahoo.com)
Date: Thu May 10 2007 - 14:36:57 EDT
I came across the following web page when I searched
the internet:
http://jonathankerr.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!19311A7F1792DA1C!329.entry
Thanks for the comment there. One thing that that site
tells me is the contrast difference between the young
and the well-established theoretical scientists. A
young scientist is eager to think something new and
wish to make changes for better science. A
well-established scientist tends to maintain what
he/she has already achieved. Such a dilemma was well
described by Kuhn (not Kohn :-)
http://www.des.emory.edu/mfp/Kuhn.html
Kuhn recognized that a significant (or important)
paradigm shift in scientific theories is generally
made by a younger scientist, and is strongly resisted
by the established scientific community, as shown by
the history. But a young scientist also tends to make
naive mistakes in theoretical science, complicating
the standout of a true theoretical revolution.
I would like to call this dilemma between the young
and the established as the Kuhn dilemma. What is an
appropriate solution for the Kuhn dilemma then? How
about to establish an award for theoretical paradigm
shift? That would be really a good intention worth
praising. But who should be the judges?
Such an award would create another philosophical
dilemma on the top of the Kuhn dilemma. If the
established community (where the judges from) are
eager to award (not to resist) a significant and
important paradigm shift in theoretical science,
Kuhn's theory and reasoning are wrong!
Actually, I think that the Kuhn dilemma has been
solved for nearly two decades due to human's
civilization in the Internet communications, which
will make the resistance (to the new theoretical
discovery) powerless or very short-lived. The youngers
instead of the established will be the ultimate judges
of scientific theories. As soon as we have a global
community of free, open, equal, and professional
discussions on science, a scientific truth will be
eventually a scientific truth. Any naive mistakes will
be mistakes and cannot be helped by the Internet.
The Internet communications are profoundly changing a
world community of political correctness in
theoretical chemistry, a world community of blind
trust, and a world community of fear to speak the
correct science. The Nobel foundation and Nobel
laureates are not super-human but all normal human
beings who make errors here and there. The Internet
communications are changing the absolute control of
the theoretical discussions by Nobel
foundation-authorized scientific giants.
That web site by Kerr also tells me that some younger
chemists are not quite familiar with famous
philosophers in science such as Popper (not Pople :-)
Kuhn was more accurate in account of historical
evolution of scientific theories. Popper is a figure
of vigorously logical reasoning:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/popper/
Sengen
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