Heidelberg University

Beyond the STS-Myth and Jargon: How Science Builds on Scientific Revolutions, Convergence, K-Resources Dynamics, Core-Contexts and Frontiers of Theory Development

Giridhari Lal Pandit, University of Delhi

Abstract:

The rationality of the third revolution in the life sciences horizon can be seen as strongly building upon the rationalities of the first and second revolutions starting from 1953 and 1980s respectively (Watson and Crick 1953; Allen 1978; Sharp 2014). Significantly enough, the third revolution in the life-sciences horizon implies a problem-driven New Biology for the 21st century 'as a convergence of life sciences with engineering, physical, mathematical, and computational sciences', that renders Thomas Kuhn's (1970) historiographical narrative of 'normal science' - 'revolutionary science' divide not just irrelevant but indefensible:

First, it is no longer possible to recycle Thomas Kuhn's (1962, 1970) highly ambivalent/ambiguous sociologically charged jargon - 'paradigms', 'paradigm-shifts', 'incommensurable paradigms'- to answer basic questions: What is science?; What is scientific change?; What are scientific revolutions?; How does scientific discovery create new frontiers of ignorance and convergence? How does it influence our lives?; Can science help us understand everything about the universe? And, second, it is not possible to avoid 'science wars' between the 'competing paradigms', say, those of the Aristotelians on the one hand and the Copernicus-Keplar-Galileo-Newtonian framework, on the other, if we assume, with Kuhn (1970, pp. 148-150), that the 'incommensurability' of the 'competing paradigms' reigns across the 'normal science' -- 'revolutionary science' divide. They will, as Kuhn says, (1) disagree about their standards or definitions of science - scientific problems and their solutions; (2) share not understanding but misunderstanding about each other as an inevitable consequence of the fact that 'within the new paradigm, old terms, concepts, and explanations fall into new relationships one with the other'; and (3) 'practice their trades in different worlds ... Practicing in different worlds, the two groups of scientists see different things when they look from the same point in the same direction'.

The lectures (WS: 5th - 9th October 2015) focus on how science, scientific change and the growth of knowledge rationally build on the scientific revolutions, and the scientific revolutions themselves, in their turn, build as 'extremely slow processes of discovery and acceptance - more a slow dawning than a paradigm shift'. Neither for the scientist nor for science itself can the highly ambivalent sociologically charged jargon of 'paradigms', arguably, play a relevant role at the various levels of methodological analysis of science - viz., scientific revolutions, core-contexts and frontiers of theory development, integration and convergence. Moreover, they have no relevance to the STSs and the public understanding of science. One might even ask the question whether there has ever been a 'paradigm shift' in modern physics. The answer is in the negative.

Thus, it is both mistaken and misleading to employ the highly sociologically charged jargon of 'paradigms' and 'paradigm shifts' in the historiographical narratives of science and scientific progress, whether at the frontiers of physics and astronomy or at those of the life sciences (Lakatos and Musgrave 1970; Masterman 1970, pp.59-66; Pandit and Dosch 2013; Popper 1934, 1959, 1963, 1972, 1975). Updated: 6th July, 2015.

Key-concepts: science and technology (ST); science and technology studies (STSs); life-sciences horizon; rationality of scientific revolutions; convergence; principles of knowledge resources dynamics (Krds); growth of scientific knowledge...