Kuhn’s Paradigm

Chris RageBoy Locke has sent an email to a few of us pointing out an excellent article in the NY Times by Edward Rothstein about recent books about Thomas Kuhn, author of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) and the guy who – damn his eyes! – introduced the phrase “paradigm shift.” The article talks about Steve Fuller, a sociologist who has written a philosophical biography (which I have not read).
The Times article summarizes Fuller’s position:

Mr. Fuller, in fact, suggests that Kuhn, despite his reputation, had too much allegiance to the old concepts of science. Kuhn, says Mr. Fuller, retained the “elitist myth” about “visionary geniuses” who changed the world by shifting paradigms. The notion of a coterie of specialists coming to agreement, Mr. Fuller says, supports the idea of an authoritarian, antidemocratic establishment.
…Unlike the object of his criticism, Mr. Fuller doesn’t offer many scientific examples but he does follow some of Kuhn’s precepts in mounting his attack. Like Kuhn, he treats scientific inquiry as a matter of sociological confrontation rather than a progress toward truth; he just thinks the confrontations should be taken out of the hands of specialists. Science, he says, should become a democratic clamor of competing ideas.

Fuller’s attack (or the Times’ representation of that attack) seems off base. Kuhn was an historian of science. He found a paradigmatic movement in that history. The fact is that Newton, for example, smashed the old paradigm through an intellectual breakthrough so radical that it can only be called an act of visionary genius. (I just finished Newton’s Gift by David Berlinski, an oddly ornate but quite effective effort to explain the magnitude of Newton’s genius to those like me whose math is 400 years behind the times.) Within the bounds of the new paradigm, science becomes a more-or-less democratic clamor of competing ideas. The fact that science operates within – conforms to – a paradigm discovered by a (usually) dead white man may make us uncomfortable politically, but I think Kuhn’s description (notice, not “prescription”) is brilliant and can only be refuted by an hypothesis that accounts for the facts of the history of science as well as his does. (The Times points out that Fuller’s critique is not redolent of historical facts.)
Now, having said that, Fuller is certainly right that science is becoming democratized and messy, no little thanks to the Web. What started as a way for scientists to exchange information is sapping the power from the scientific authorities, for the old guard worked by limiting access to information – could your article make it into Science or JAMA? – and now, of course, we not only have unlimited access to information, but that access is causing new scientific communities to form the way rocks cause eddies in streams.
But does this mean Kuhn is wrong? Not in the essence of his insight. Paradigms are second-order information. They frame the eddies. They determine which questions are sensible to ask and which issues are urgent. They enable science to proceed with its daily tasks. They require, by definition, an act of genius to be born. But perhaps we have entered a time when multiple paradigms can exist.
The Web is ready for this but the real world isn’t … and the funding comes from the real world.
[Note 1: This doesn’t touch on the truly sensitive topic: can one paradigm be said to be closer to the truth than another or are all paradigms equal? Don’t even get me started!]

[Note 2: RageBoy has found a really interesting article by the philosopher Don Ihde about why there aren’t “science critics” equivalent to art critics. RB mentions this over at Gonzo Engaged where he also reminds us that Jeneane is up to some important blogging.]

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