From: turpin@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin)
Newsgroups: sci.med,sci.skeptic,alt.psychology.personality
Subject: There are paradigms and then there are paradigms
Date: 8 Jan 1993 17:43:25 -0600
Organization: CS Dept, University of Texas at Austin
NNTP-Posting-Host: im4u.cs.utexas.edu
Summary: In response to Jon Noring.

-*----
The problem with approaching substantive topics in short posts
is that so much is necessarily left unsaid, and there confusion
breeds. 

In article <1993Jan8.194315.20491@netcom.com> noring@netcom.com (Jon Noring) writes:
> I am very impressed with Russell's presentation of the scientific method,
> and how important it is for a scientist to remain critical and skeptical
> when faced with theories and experimental evidence that contradict our
> present state-of-the-knowledge.  It is true that the burden of proof lies
> with the proponents and subject to verification by the scientific community.
>
> But at this point, Russell and I part company. ...

Not much.  There is very little in Jon Noring's post with which I
disagree.  I think some of our seeming disagreement results from
my failure to explain adequately the scope of my criticism of
"paradigm talk."

> In a private e-mail communication with a physicist e-mail friend who 
> knows his quantum mechanics and does not totally agree with Sarfatti,
> he stated that some of these other physicists are just jealous,
> closed-minded, and react the way they do because they are afraid
> that the ramifications of Sarfatti's research would undermine many 
> of the "paradigms" (sorry Russell) that they hold dearly ...
>
> I know several scientists, all of good standing in their areas of expertise,
> who do spend some of their valuable time studying such unorthodox 
> speculations ... And, though Russell does not like this, they use the
> phrase "new paradigms" a lot in referring to this activity. ...
>
> ... A scientist needs to *always* challenge the "paradigms" (sorry
> Russell) they currently hold, and be willing to change them once the
> new ones pass rational scientific scrutiny (notice I said rational).

At least in the contexts above, I understand what is meant by
"paradigm." It simply means an approach to a problem or a
conceptual model for some set of phenomena.  The problem is that
the word "paradigm" has become much overused, and is often
applied at the next level up in the discursive hierarchy to
bypass the need of new paradigms (as used in the lower level) to
"pass rational scientific scrutiny."  I tried (and obviously
failed) to make clear the level of discourse at which I was
criticizing paradigm talk.  Let me try to make this clear, using
as an example a convsersation that took place in sci.med. 

One writer was proposing certain medical remedies based on the
notion of qi energy flowing through the body.  In the sense that
I understand the word paradigm (at the lower level), the notion
of qi energy flowing through the body is one such, perhaps even a
good one.  But before it is accepted as a good paradigm (lower
level), it must "pass rational scientific scrutiny."  So I asked
what experiments demonstrated the existence of this qi energy.  

If the discourse had stayed on this level, my respondent would
have described the experiments and we would have proceeded to
discuss their evidential import.  Instead, he popped up one level
in discourse.  My asking for such experimental evidence, my
thinking that this was the way to approach an empirical paradigm
(lower level) such as the notion of qi energy, was in his mind
the wrong paradigm (upper level).  

My respondent could not (or did not) explain what he meant by a
paradigm at this new level of discourse, or what was wrong in my
asking for evidence of an empirical claim.  Seemingly, this
paradigm change he thought I needed at this upper level of
discourse is much like the "leap of faith" to which religious
philosophers refer.  Whatever utility and rationality this notion
has in religion, in discussions of empirical phenomena it seems
to me no more than a dodge to the requirement that the proponents
of a new paradigm (lower level) search for and present evidence
for it.  This dodge is very common and it is this dodge that I
describe as a sign of quackery. 

> I would even go as far to say that a scientist is incompetent who refuses to
> rethink (notice I'm not saying throw out, just rethink) the basic fundamental
> postulates of present day theory when confronted with conflicting scientific
> evidence. ...

I couldn't agree more.  But what do you say to those who want you
to adopt radically different theories *despite* evidential
considerations?  Who think that approaching theories in light of
such evidential considerations is the wrong paradigm, whatever 
that means in this context?

> I believe all of us would agree it is important that new 
> ideas, speculations, theories, etc. get a fair hearing and
> are presented to the scientific community at large.  Why?  As
> Russell correctly points out, a large majority of these
> speculations turn out to be dead-ends.  But do these speculations 
> have value in and of themselves, right or wrong?  The answer is
> an emphatic YES! ...

I agree.  But I also think that it is important that speculations
be presented as speculations, and I think the move from
discussing them as speculation to viewing them as better
understandings of the world must come on the back of evidence.
In the context of medical practice, people who treat these
speculations as well-tested theory, who cannot or will not pay
attention to the evidential issues, and who nonetheless recommend
particular remedies based on these speculations are quacks in the
worst sense of the word. 

> ... As a scientist myself, ... I can say that the egalitarian 
> view that scientists, as a group, *use* the scientific method
> in their approach to new ideas (or new "paradigms"), is not what I
> observe in real life. ...

All the more reason to reiterate the importance of critical
thought!  

Seriously, I agree that scientists are susceptible to
irrationality.  I do not recall anywhere suggesting that
scientists were more than human.  (If so, will someone please
dredge it up so that I can ritually eat those fould words!) On
the other hand, I think some of the group processes in place help
mitigate against individual irrationality, though far from
perfectly. 

> There's a quote by a famous physicist - the name and the exact 
> quote I can't remember, but paraphrased it goes like this:  "When
> does a new theory in physics get established?  When all the older
> physicists die off!" ...

The chief problem I have with this quote is that I doubt that
all (or even most) of the old physicists died off between 1905 and
1920.  (If anything, these years killed off the younger physicists.)
I think modern science changes too fast to take this quote as a rule 
about how it changes.

Russell
Newsgroups: sci.med