Comments on: Progress is continuous by nature

By: Seb

Seb — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 21:29:06 +0000

Progress is continuous, but “revolutionary” spurts happen, usually following a build-up phase. E.g. in the case of special relativity, there was a prior accumulation of observations contradicting the aether theory over a few decades.

The build-up phase is important for an important innovation to be recognized as such. Otherwise the discoverer is classified as a crackpot until the surrounding culture is ready for it. (Of course by that time s/he may be long forgotten.)

When the culture is ready for an innovation, multiple independent occurences are likely because there are many “prepared minds”.

There’s a bit of old west wisdom that goes like this: “If you’re ridin’ ahead of the herd, take a look back every now and then, to make sure it’s still there with ya.” I like to think that it’s good advice for scientists, too.

(Daniel, remind me to blog about this someday.)

By: Geoff Wozniak

Geoff Wozniak — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 16:11:04 +0000

When I heard about Khun’s notion of discontinuous scientific progress, my reaction was the same as yours: “Hogwash!” Darwin and Wallace is a great example of how ideas are built up, not suddenly invented.

Perhaps Khun is really getting at the appearance of ideas to the general public. Within a certain community, seemingly revolutionary ideas aren’t novel at all (like reflection in programming systems these days or evolution in the mid-19th century) while the larger population outside of that community will have never heard of it. Perhaps, then, it is the appearance of a refined idea when released from the community that has been working to refine it that is the source of the Khun’s discontinuity.

By: leFinch

leFinch — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 23:21:08 +0000

…and read Simon Winchester’s excellent book on Joseph Needham’s research into China’s history of scientific discovery, The Man Who Loved China (http://tinyurl.com/9a7zjh) for a further reminder that much of what we hear of science’s history is Western-centric.

By: SoloGen

SoloGen — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 20:29:14 +0000

I believe Kuhn’s viewpoint is not that Darwin or anyone else discovered/invented/… a radically new science *singlehandedly*. His point is that we have both phases of science: normal science which is progressive, and revolutionary phase where previous ideas about how to do science and what is science change.
My understanding of his book is that it is not that much about how some people were great scientists, as opposed to how the science changes during time.

By: Daniel Lemire

Daniel Lemire — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 18:13:32 +0000

But Darwin did come up with “evolution from natural selection”. The thing is, others did too and his idea was based on the work of one of his uncle and on Lamark and others.

It is not an “accident” that Wallace and Darwin both had the same idea. That is the point I am making.

There is no magical “breakthrough” due to one’s superior brain. Our progress does not depend on a few heroes. That is a myth.

By: ss

ss — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 17:51:05 +0000

ok, so then if darwin didn’t come up with it, how did lamark?

By: Zeppe

Zeppe — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 16:05:37 +0000

It is also a matter of how good you are at *creating* a social phenomenon.

In general, it is undeniable that there is a huge non-linearity on science and society progress. Our life is plenty of sudden booms and crushes, too use economical terms. Society and social (positive) feedback are the key behind this non-linearity, so that if a perturbation (such as a new invention) doesn’t perturb the system over a given threshold, there won’t be any noticeable long-term modification in it.

I agree, however, that becoming part of history and having superior ideas are two quite unrelated things!