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Re: [xmca] Units of Scientiic Achievement
I should think it a lot easier to disprove the existence of intelligence.
Or perhaps simply to point out how really crappy the design of a lot of life actually is.
The evidence against Intelligent Design is simply that there's not much evidence of intelligence in the design.
JAY.
PS. This is relevant to the larger issue of what constitutes a conceptual revolution, but I'll leave that for another time.
Jay Lemke
Senior Research Scientist
Laboratory for Comparative Human Cognition
University of California - San Diego
9500 Gilman Drive
La Jolla, California 92093-0506
Professor (Adjunct status 2009-11)
School of Education
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
www.umich.edu/~jaylemke
Professor Emeritus
City University of New York
On Jun 20, 2011, at 7:16 AM, Carol Macdonald wrote:
> Yep, evolutionery theory actually runs counter to "normal" science, but what
> would it take to *disprove* it? I can't imagine. Intelligent design has
> something of the same problem--you would have to disprove the existence of
> God in order to disprove it.
> Carol
>
> On 20 June 2011 15:43, Michael Glassman <MGlassman@ehe.osu.edu> wrote:
>
>> I think Kuhn's idea of revolution as defining movement between paradigms
>> comes not from speed but from the idea that change is not adaptive nor
>> necessarily progressive, but is instead based on the failure of the dominant
>> paradigm to solve crucial problems (hence problem solving at the unit of
>> analysis). As a matter of fact my reading is that within Kuhn's framework
>> of change the idea of evolution actually works against change. This is
>> because those who are most wedded to the paradigm will continuously make the
>> argument that the paradigm itself is evolving and should not be abandoned.
>> They will always make the argument just one more experiment, just one more
>> twist or turn to the theory and the paradigm is right back on course.
>> Change though means a complete break, a giving up on the idea that a
>> paradigm can actually adapt, and there is a revolution in thinking.
>>
>> Michael
>>
>> ________________________________
>>
>> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu on behalf of Andy Blunden
>> Sent: Mon 6/20/2011 9:33 AM
>> To: Carol Macdonald
>> Cc: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>> Subject: Re: [xmca] Units of Scientiic Achievement
>>
>>
>> Well, the literature on that book would probably fill a library so I ought
>> to limit myself.
>>
>> I don't know where the idea of "no revolutions" comes from, but I would
>> have thought that the idea that the dominant paradigm being gradually eroded
>> in the very process of working itself out is pretty suggestive. Maybe the
>> fall of Apartheid didn't live up to the image of a revolution either?
>> Anyway, I think there are a lot of parallels with both Vygotsky and Hegel,
>> so long as one remains within the confines of a closed scientific community.
>> The main thing I was struck by was Kuhn's notion of concepts as problem
>> solution.
>>
>> Vygotsky said it many times, but for example from "The development of
>> thinking and concept formation in the adolescent" in the Vygotsky Reader:
>> "only during the course of some intelligent activity directed toward the
>> attainment of a specific goal or the solution of a particular problem, can a
>> concept come into being and take form." Or this paragraph:
>>
>>
>>
>> "In contrast to the process of maturation of instincts and inborn
>> drives, the impelling force which determines the start of any process or
>> initiates any evolving mechanism of behaviour and propels it forward along
>> the path of further development, is not to be found inside, but outside the
>> adolescent and, in this sense, the problems thrown up in front of the
>> maturing adolescent by the society around him, which are connected with the
>> process of growing into the cultural, professional and social life of
>> adults, are extremely important functional aspects which continually depend
>> on the reciprocal conditionality and the organic coherence and internal
>> unity of form and content in the development of thinking."
>>
>> When you say "the cell concept of the concept is there all the time," I
>> presume you mean the paradigm which is generating the problem-solving
>> activity? Yes, until it falls into crisis. So you have an ideal, which first
>> arose as a solution to a total crisis, and then sets up a new project to
>> establish itself and solve its own problems. And thus all the subordinate
>> concepts, its "special principles" (to use Hegel's phrase) appear in the
>> form of problems needing to be solved. But the solution or not of every
>> problem ricochets back on the "cell" as you call it.
>>
>> Does that make sense?
>> Andy
>>
>> Carol Macdonald wrote:
>>
>> It's me, who never has the reference to hand, but apparently, there
>> aren't actual revolutions, the dominant paradigm gets gets eroded and
>> eroded over time.
>>
>> And yes, I can see the unit as the developed concept--but aren't we
>> going to have to describe what happens as this thing is developing? So I
>> don't think it is totally compelling. Of course I may be missing something,
>> and the cell concept of the concept is there all the time? What do you
>> think, Andy?
>>
>> Carol
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 20 June 2011 12:11, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>> I have just re-read Kuhn's "Structure of Scientific
>> Revolutions" after many years. As is often the case with a classic like
>> this, it proved to be a lot more nuanced than its reception (or my memory of
>> it).
>> One of the lines which struck me was this: "the unit of
>> scientific achievement is the solved problem." (p. 169)
>> In the context of Vygotsky's writing on true concepts and
>> the meaning he gives to "unit" this is very profound. Reading Kuhn from
>> Vygotsky I find very productive.
>>
>> Andy
>> --
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> *Andy Blunden*
>> Joint Editor MCA:
>> http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~db=all~content=g932564744
>> Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
>> Book: http://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=227&pid=34857
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>>
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>>
>> --
>>
>> ________________________________
>>
>> *Andy Blunden*
>> Joint Editor MCA:
>> http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~db=all~content=g932564744
>> Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
>> Book: http://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=227&pid=34857
>> MIA: http://www.marxists.org <http://www.marxists.org/>
>>
>>
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>
>
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> Wits School of Education
> Research Fellow
> Linguistics Dept: Unisa
> -----------------------------------------
> HOME (please use these details)
> 6 Andover Road
> Westdene
> Johannesburg 2092
> +27 (0)11 673 9265 +27 (0)82 562 1050
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