Why is there so much crackpot physics?

[BurntSynapse]

The point is that the platonic solids are the only regular, convex polyhedrons with congruent faces of regular polygons that can exist within the context of three dimensional Euclidean geometry. Change the context and some other mathematical realities and relationships will result.

Thanks!

I'd welcome your suggestions communicating the idea that contexts are always subject to change in unpredictable ways, thereby changing what we consider true.

 

[BurntSynapse]

Hi BurntSynapse

Please explain exactly how the many pet theories you have would have helped Edwin Hubble and his research assistant in their paradigm shift.

Even if you'd clarified what you mean by "pet theory", and "show", adding the new requirement of exactness takes the request outside of what seems productive.

The more precision we attempt with guesses about real world implementations of theory, the less accurate such guesses tend to be. Thus, such efforts for exactness generally seem a waste, and fairly certain to be grossly inaccurate - leaving us wondering whether our approach is wrong or we strove for too much detail.

Then explain how your pet theories would have helped Alan Guth (which is unfair), so I will say Ernest Rutherford instead who was involved in a huge paradigm shift.

Absent what you mean by "my pet theories", the "involvement" you have in mind, and what you regard as Rutherford's involvement, any description given would probably be far off the mark.

I am asking how all the different things you claim would help research and in particular paradigm shift would have any practical application.

My main practical recommendation is that improving standards like NSB 07-032 with information from experts in HPS specializing in scientific revolutions is, all things being equal, a good idea. Technically, the recommendations apply to administration of research, not the research.

It is for experts in application of policy standards to research standards (which I almost never do) to use their judgment in how to influence improvement of researchers.

Guth was unfair because it is a theoretical paradigm shift,

If you tell me the shift you have in mind, I'd be interested to look at it. I've never modeled a cognitive frame cold.

 

[The Man]

Correct. Kassler quotes some author as finding 26 different meanings of "paradigm" in Kuhn's work - perhaps even with just SSR.

Excellent.

That the usage I describe seems very common in HPS material I've read...like "problem". I've heard different reasons for moving away from "paradigm shift" that have convinced me that more technical concepts and jargon enable better analysis, more detailed understanding, and more precise reasoning we are getting into. Since my field is application, my interest in definitions leans more toward lexicographers, and whether that sort of definition meets acceptable scoping criteria.

Uhm, the phrase you were questioning the usage of was “common & ordinary”. So what did you mean by that phrase? You may find our usages were not dissimilar.

My current preference for distinguishing potentially revolutionary cognitive frames by whether and how they tend to recategorize exemplars in ways impossible in previous frames. I suspect HPS people will continue improving and expanding on that, if they haven't already. Perhaps its already frowned on by some, but the last critique I read seemed weak.

Ok so you ain’t quite got one you really want to use yet but take an approach similar to Justice Potter Stewart on hard-core pornography in that ‘I know it when I see it’?

The meanings and use have changed, and current uses seem different (and better) than uses from decades ago.

Exactly how have those “meanings and use” changed? What do you think tends to make those changes seem better to you? “seem different” you say? So you’re just not sure if those “current uses” are in fact different?

Confusion over whether some meanings of 'paradigms" & "shifts" support or should support various claims is exactly the kind of confusion that lead to clarifications like development of the recategorization criterion in the late 90's & early 2000's.

Great, so what exactly is the criteria of that “criterion” and how exactly does it “lead to clarifications” or adress the confusion you mentioned.

To dive into that, we should probably use more modern, precise terms and concepts. Human cognitive processes are regarded as utilizing the same basic mental machinery, and as Nersessian points out, external cultural resources and other factors change.

Well more “precise terms and concepts” would certainly be a step in the right direction. As you note that “Human cognitive processes are regarded as utilizing the same basic mental machinery” so that ain’t changed from previous paradigm shifts and if “external cultural resources and other factors” are basically always changing that condition is no different than before as well.

That conclusion hits the nail quite squarely, I'd say.

Which nail is that? The one where things just “seem different” but what you cite doesn't “seem different” or explicitly isn’t different. The one where things are in fact different but you just don’t seem able to cite that difference or the changes that have resulted effectively. Perhaps the one where you would just like things to be different and “better” (heck, who wouldn’t) but seem either unable or just unwilling to cite just what you would change, how you would change it, why and how you would determine those changes get the results you intend.

Though I expect that when trying to nail Jell-O to a wall hitting a Jell-O nail “quite squarely” is as efficacious as any other.

 

[BurntSynapse]

Hi BurntSynapse

Please explain exactly how the many pet theories you have would have helped Edwin Hubble and his research assistant in their paradigm shift.

Even if you'd clarified what you mean by "pet theory", and "show", adding the new requirement of exactness takes the request outside of what seems productive.

The more precision we attempt with guesses about real world implementations of theory, the less accurate such guesses tend to be. Thus, such efforts for exactness generally seem a waste, and fairly certain to be grossly inaccurate - leaving us wondering whether our approach is wrong or we strove for too much detail.

Then explain how your pet theories would have helped Alan Guth (which is unfair), so I will say Ernest Rutherford instead who was involved in a huge paradigm shift.

Absent what you mean by "my pet theories", the "involvement" you have in mind, and what you regard as Rutherford's involvement, any description given would probably be far off the mark.

I am asking how all the different things you claim would help research and in particular paradigm shift would have any practical application.

My main practical recommendation is that improving standards like NSB 07-032 with information from experts in HPS specializing in scientific revolutions is, all things being equal, a good idea. Technically, the recommendations apply to administration of research, not the research.

It is for experts in application of policy standards to research standards (which I almost never do) to use their judgment in how to influence improvement of researchers.

Guth was unfair because it is a theoretical paradigm shift,

If you tell me the shift you have in mind, I'd be interested to look at it. I've never modeled a cognitive frame cold.

 

[The Man]

My main practical recommendation is that improving standards like NSB 07-032 with information from experts in HPS specializing in scientific revolutions is, all things being equal, a good idea. Technically, the recommendations apply to administration of research, not the research.

For your own edification “improving standards like NSB 07-032 with information from experts in HPS specializing in scientific revolutions is, all things being equal, a good idea.” is an opinion not a practical recommendation.

Yes we all still know that some experts in HPS aren’t being relied upon as much as you or perhaps even they would like.

The main thing I get for NSB 07-032 is just this…

http://www.nsf.gov/nsb/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=108494

 

[BurntSynapse]

Excellent.

Paradigm shifts are processes over time, and it would seem very strange not to allow consideration of what is going on during that process. Discussing the state "after a process is complete" seems common & ordinary.

We may use process verbs as nouns, referring to things such as "a birth" in the past, but there's nothing inherent in most definitions that prohibit us from saying a birth will be like this in the future, is proceeding like that right now, or took place some other way a century ago.

While attempting to discuss paradigm shifts where the paradigm hasn’t shifted makes them so “common & ordinary” as to be meaningless.

AFAIK, the term "incomplete paradigm shift" is most often used [now] to refer to a situation where some, but not all members of the community adopt a new cognitive frame.

Uhm, the phrase you were questioning the usage of was “common & ordinary”. So what did you mean by that phrase? You may find our usages were not dissimilar.

As indicated in use of "birth" as a noun for a process, I was questioning how a word with dual use becomes meaningless if invoking more modern variations of the original, confusing "paradigm shift".

What I was talking about is probably better as: "We are attempting to discuss paradigm shifts (of a particular individual) where the paradigm (of the community) hasn’t completely shifted to the new model..." this seems to make the subject I've got in mind more clear...but replacing the chimeric "paradigm" for more precise terms seems like a good idea.

Ok so you ain’t quite got one you really want to use yet but take an approach similar to Justice Potter Stewart on hard-core pornography in that ‘I know it when I see it’?

If you mean definition of paradigm, and it has 26 meanings in SSR alone, I prefer using entirely different terms. Many people know the word though, enabling quick, if inaccurate communication of the general topic we are addressing.

Exactly how have those “meanings and use” changed?

I'd guess by research of people in the "Kuhnian tradition" (or whatever they call it), teasing out the consequences of logical inquiry and historical evidence they've gathered, but I've never watched.

What do you think tends to make those changes seem better to you?

Eliminating confusion by distinguishing among those 26 potential ambiguities seems like reasonable evidence. Integration with other disciplines is a flag for hot research areas James Burke cited at dConstruct a couple of years ago.

That's a good question...I should probably have a more rigorous answer.
(makes note)

So you’re just not sure if those “current uses” are in fact different?

I'm sure that the answer depends on one's perspective, but I want to be sure I can avoid any appearance of implying I can or would want to try to convince anyone either way.

There's been enough grief of context already, IMO.

Great, so what exactly is the criteria of that “criterion” and how exactly does it “lead to clarifications” or adress the confusion you mentioned.

The criterion I place some importance on is whether the new cognitive frame recategorizes exemplars in ways impossible in previous frames. IMO, this implies that revolutionary frame replacement is impossible if we don't already have a frame that enables such impossibility.

It also explains why we don't experience the humor of a joke when the underlying violation of expectation is sufficiently unfamiliar. AFAIK, that's an original interpretation of my own, and I can't cite anyone who shares it.

 

[The Man]

The point is that the platonic solids are the only regular, convex polyhedrons with congruent faces of regular polygons that can exist within the context of three dimensional Euclidean geometry. Change the context and some other mathematical realities and relationships will result.

The same would be true of polychorons, in that any civilization interested in polychorons would discover the same characteristics we have.

This brings up an interesting point, if perhaps there are only a finite number of paradigm shifts to be discovered or that human cognition can handle. Having cleared a lot of the 'low hanging' fruit already the really big shifts or (like we've had over the past century or so) may be far and few between. Certainly experimental requirements are far more demanding, instrumentality far more expensive and resource time more limited. Conversely data, theories and research papers are far more generally available then they have been throughout our entire history. Additionally more powerful computers and molding software are also more readily available. Lump that all together and we find ourselves at a choke point with enough rope to wrap ourselves up like a mummy.

 

[Dancing David]

Even if you'd clarified what you mean by "pet theory", and "show", adding the new requirement of exactness takes the request outside of what seems productive.

The more precision we attempt with guesses about real world implementations of theory, the less accurate such guesses tend to be. Thus, such efforts for exactness generally seem a waste, and fairly certain to be grossly inaccurate - leaving us wondering whether our approach is wrong or we strove for too much detail.


Absent what you mean by "my pet theories", the "involvement" you have in mind, and what you regard as Rutherford's involvement, any description given would probably be far off the mark.


My main practical recommendation is that improving standards like NSB 07-032 with information from experts in HPS specializing in scientific revolutions is, all things being equal, a good idea. Technically, the recommendations apply to administration of research, not the research.

It is for experts in application of policy standards to research standards (which I almost never do) to use their judgment in how to influence improvement of researchers.


If you tell me the shift you have in mind, I'd be interested to look at it. I've never modeled a cognitive frame cold.

Excuse em BS, I have read this thread throughout although I refrained from comments for a long time.

-you either feel you have ideas that could benefit the 'scientific revolutions' or not, so if you don't then justa dmit it.

- you claim that something out there could benefit shift in paradigms and 'scientific revolutions', but I think it is obvious you don't know what those are.

Edwin Hubble led one of the biggest paradigm shifts and 'scientific revolutions' in astronomy.
Earnest Rutherford the same as the discovery of modern atomic theory and particle physics.

So either your ideas have merit, and if they do then how exactly would your ideas have benefited them.

I think you just have magical thinking and loose association, I could point out the apparent dodges and waffling in your response.

I am saying, you seem to be mistaken about what leads to 'scientific revolutions', I chose two and I am asking how you would have made them better.


So this is where you have a chance to stop just using fancy words and phrases, I chose two big 'scientific revolutions', now you say how you pet theories and ideas could have benefited them.

 

[W.D.Clinger]

Welcome, Max Tegmark.

If BurntSynapse's questions seem odd, it's because they are. Let me explain where he's coming from.

It seems odd to claim such broad reach for ideas that apply to such restricted domains. Stipulating "Platonic solids" seems artificially narrow. We would have to rule out infinities of other conditions, like pi dimensions, wouldn't we?

BurntSynapse thinks physicists have been paying too little attention to non-Euclidean geometries, and appears to have been taken in by some of the fractal woo. He didn't realize general relativity is based upon non-Euclidean geometry, and he still seems not to realize that Mandelbrot's fractal dimensions apply to curves (and hyperspaces in general) whose topological dimension is integral even when their so-called fractal dimension is not.

What about polychorons - could they count? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polychoron

Polychorons are 4-dimensional polytopes, so they don't count as Platonic solids. There's nothing wrong with either concept, but they're different concepts. What Max Tegmark was saying is that any sufficiently advanced alien civilization would discover exactly the same five Platonic solids we know, just as they would discover exactly the same 47 non-prismatic convex uniform polychora we know.

BurntSynapse appears to be unaware that mathematicians routinely work with arbitrary simplicial complexes in arbitrary (topological) dimensions.

As I understand science, such frameworks should (at least in in principle), always be subject to revision.

Mathematics is unusual in that respect. Any alien mathematics that discovers more than five Platonic solids is either wrong or is using a different definition of Platonic solid (which means it may have discovered more than five of something, but it hasn't discovered more than five of what we mean by the Platonic solids). This extreme objectivity of mathematics may explain Perpetual Student's annoyance when people say math is "just" a language.

Responding now to remarks BurntSynapse addressed directly to me:

Consider, for example, the rules that specify the context-free syntax of a programming language.

We are asked to consider things that fall within the category of what we might call "rules".

The rules category seems here further qualified by stipulating we are only considering rules that "specify".

The domain is then further narrowed to only those specifying rules which apply to "syntax".

The kind of syntax under consideration is further refined to those in "context-free" categories...and so on.

This seems like providing alot of (IMO necessary) contextual support for whatever claims are going to be made, and it seems like this is needed for the claim to be interpreted and meaningful. "Meaning" certainly seems like it has to be relative to something, and Quine's "web of belief" seems like a good model for that.

It may well be wrong, but it it intelligible?

Well, "it it intelligible" if we regard it as an example of your remarkable determination to demonstrate your own personal failure to comprehend critical thinking 101.

As a coherent refutation of the principle that counterexamples to unqualified general claims can be drawn from any domain, it is not intelligible.

It would be even less intelligible to those who remember my first counterexample (Gödel's completeness theorem) and realize I gave you this second class of counterexamples only because you were completely unfamiliar ("Even if true") with Gödel's theorem.

For the seventh time, BurntSynapse has mentioned this Kassler person:

Correct. Kassler quotes some author as finding 26 different meanings of "paradigm" in Kuhn's work - perhaps even with just SSR.

Which Kassler is that, BurntSynapse? Are you talking about Dr Jeanne Kassler, who died in 2002? Are you talking about Michael Kassler, the musician?

I ask because you have earned an impressive reputation for misrepresenting the views of philosophers whose names you drop here (Gödel, Quine, and others) so I'd like to see for myself what this Kassler person actually says.

Could it be you don't know how to spell this person's name? Might you mean Professor Jeffrey Kasser of Colorado State University, who "specializes in epistemology and the history of American pragmatism"?

 

[The Man]

As indicated in use of "birth" as a noun for a process, I was questioning how a word with dual use becomes meaningless if invoking more modern variations of the original, confusing "paradigm shift".

What I was talking about is probably better as: "We are attempting to discuss paradigm shifts (of a particular individual) where the paradigm (of the community) hasn’t completely shifted to the new model..." this seems to make the subject I've got in mind more clear...but replacing the chimeric "paradigm" for more precise terms seems like a good idea.

Oh, so in your reconstruction you’re just going to leave out the relevant quote…

I'm not entirely sure what is meant here by common & ordinary, but the lack of clarity on the term seems to be cited as leading to replacement of the term "paradigm" itself by more technical terms.

…has that ever worked for you?

I knew exactly what you were talking about which is why I said it “makes them so “common & ordinary” as to be meaningless”.

If you mean definition of paradigm, and it has 26 meanings in SSR alone, I prefer using entirely different terms. Many people know the word though, enabling quick, if inaccurate communication of the general topic we are addressing.

No I meant paradigm shift which was the definition you gave. OK, you don’t want to use the one you gave. What one do you want to use now?

I'd guess by research of people in the "Kuhnian tradition" (or whatever they call it), teasing out the consequences of logical inquiry and historical evidence they've gathered, but I've never watched.

So you just don’t know how or even if they've changed. Keep on guessing.

Eliminating confusion by distinguishing among those 26 potential ambiguities seems like reasonable evidence. Integration with other disciplines is a flag for hot research areas James Burke cited at dConstruct a couple of years ago.

Not bad, but weren't they distinguished already in having “26 meanings”, hence the “potential ambiguities”? Settling on perhaps one meaning and perhaps some modifiers would seem a better approach at reducing “potential ambiguities”.

That's a good question...I should probably have a more rigorous answer.
(makes note)

No problem and it wouldn't be a bad idea to see if you can actually formulate one.

I'm sure that the answer depends on one's perspective, but I want to be sure I can avoid any appearance of implying I can or would want to try to convince anyone either way.

Makes it rater subjective doesn’t it? Isn’t that the basis of your “practical recommendation” that things have changed and new information needs to be considered? So whether or not you “can or would want to try to convince anyone either way” it seem to be the task you’ve asked to have criticized.

There's been enough grief of context already, IMO.

Grief and context, the corner stones of criticism.

The criterion I place some importance on is whether the new cognitive frame recategorizes exemplars in ways impossible in previous frames. IMO, this implies that revolutionary frame replacement is impossible if we don't already have a frame that enables such impossibility.

Yes in order to have something impossible in a previous frame you have to have a previous frame where that is impossible. A rather tautological criterion to say the least. Before you remarked to “how they tend to recategorize exemplars” have you abandoned that aspect or do you actually have a criteria for that?

Say since with no previous frame “revolutionary frame replacement is impossible” and with just any frame it now becomes possible. Thus the exemplar of “revolutionary frame replacement” has been recotagorized from impossible to possible. Looks like your “impossible” “revolutionary frame replacement” satisfies your stated “criterion” for “revolutionary frame replacement”. Talk about a paradigm shift in paradigm shifts. It is always a bad sign when your criteria makes what you assert as impossible, well, possible.

It also explains why we don't experience the humor of a joke when the underlying violation of expectation is sufficiently unfamiliar. AFAIK, that's an original interpretation of my own, and I can't cite anyone who shares it.

Not much of a joke if you expect just a familiar punch line.

 

[BurntSynapse]

-you either feel you have ideas that could benefit the 'scientific revolutions' or not, so if you don't then justa dmit it.

I propose a third option: that the answer depends on perspective. Carl Sagan said: "To make an apply pie, first create the universe."

From one perspective yes, that claim seems technically true...but it seems very odd. On the other hand: no would be our everyday answer, and doesn't seem entirely correct either.

you claim that something out there could benefit shift in paradigms and 'scientific revolutions', but I think it is obvious you don't know what those are.

Working closely with HPS experts in revolutionary scientific during the next revision of TR support guidelines may not be specific enough for some.

So either your ideas have merit, and if they do then how exactly would your ideas have benefited them.

If we believe one only has...

...magical thinking and loose association...

...then even if we receive serious, cautious answers, it is hard for us to avoid interpreting them as ...

apparent dodges and waffling

.

I am saying, you seem to be mistaken about what leads to 'scientific revolutions'

My memory is pretty dodgy, so I don't recall this ever being mentioned as a specific topic previously in this thread, which forces me to ask: What / where have claimed what leads to scientific revolutions?

If you refer to something like "problem solving" in the Nersessian model, I would respond that for Edwin Hubble, the most obvious anomalous data problem was the redshift, which he solved by development of an explanatory model. For Rutherford, the anomalous deflection of alpha particles described at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Rutherford#Rutherford_and_the_Gold_Foil_Experiment
are what I think a reasonable example of the problem which he worked to solve for about 2 years, succeeding with the nuclear model.

So this is where you have a chance to stop just using fancy words and phrases, I chose two big 'scientific revolutions', now you say how you pet theories and ideas could have benefited them.

I take it as progress to simply have more precise & accurate models, so to me, understanding the structure of scientific creativity as starting with anomalies that become regarded as anomalies needing explaining, and how problem solving leads to beneficial ideas, etc., to me this understanding is likely to be a benefit to scientists even if they can't state exactly how.

BTW - Good questions.

 

[Perpetual Student]

Thanks!

I'd welcome your suggestions communicating the idea that contexts are always subject to change in unpredictable ways, thereby changing what we consider true.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. I suppose an example might be Einstein's introduction of spacetime, which created a context that changed "in unpredictable ways," thus "changing what we consider true." The same might be said of Guth's inflation hypothesis, Gell-Mann's theory of quarks, etc. Is that what you have in mind?

 

[BurntSynapse]

Responding now to remarks BurntSynapse addressed directly to me:

Well, "it it intelligible" if we regard it as an example of your remarkable determination to demonstrate your own personal failure to comprehend critical thinking 101.

As a coherent refutation of the principle that counterexamples to unqualified general claims can be drawn from any domain, it is not intelligible.

I don't think I've provided any reason to think my question is anything other that an effort to understand your objections.

The idea that stipulating restrictions by the meaning of terms doesn't seem like it should be controversial, nor do we need to specify the exact number of hairs on a chin to be able to call something a beard, IMO.

It would be even less intelligible to those who remember my first counterexample (Gödel's completeness theorem) and realize I gave you this second class of counterexamples only because you were completely unfamiliar ("Even if true") with Gödel's theorem.

My prior confessions of abject ignorance of advanced (and no doubt some basic) math bear repeating it seems. To all: I'm completely unqualified to understand, much less assess the validity of proofs for just about anything more complex than 5 or 6. I'm no mathematician - at all.

For the seventh time, BurntSynapse has mentioned this Kassler person:

Seven? That's dogged focus. I misspelled "Kasser" as you diligently corrected. Thank you.

My references to him and his examples come from The Teaching Company course I enjoyed very much, and highly recommend. http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.aspx?cid=4100

 

[BurntSynapse]

I'm not sure what you mean by this.

The poor wording is obvious now that it's cooled off and I reread it. The reply was in a blazing hot sun, no ice, and vicious mosquito clouds.

I suppose an example might be Einstein's introduction of spacetime, which created a context that changed "in unpredictable ways," thus "changing what we consider true." The same might be said of Guth's inflation hypothesis, Gell-Mann's theory of quarks, etc. Is that what you have in mind?

Somewhat, but when speaking with policy-makers, I try to use examples that everyone "should" know, like redefinition of sunrise from sun movement to an observational consequence of human observation. That source hadn't previously been considered a possible source of uncertainty for basic definitions for a number of reasons, and some of those reasons are no longer true.

In Copernicus' day, there was no notion that anyone should be mindful such possibilities. It seems some think no one should be focusing on these now.

One of my concerns is effectively communicating that we hope to produce revolutions which alter our understanding of terms as radically as we have with other terms in the past like "sunrise", "species", or "planet".

 

[W.D.Clinger]

I don't think I've provided any reason to think my question is anything other that an effort to understand your objections.

Fair enough. I will answer in that spirit.

The idea that stipulating restrictions by the meaning of terms doesn't seem like it should be controversial, nor do we need to specify the exact number of hairs on a chin to be able to call something a beard, IMO.

The language you are using is not language you would be using if you understood the counterexamples to your claim, and the questions you have asked are not questions that would help you to understand the counterexamples or why the counterexamples are counterexamples. If your goal here is to understand the counterexamples to your claim, then it would be unhelpful of me to answer the questions you asked; answering your questions as asked would not improve your understanding, and might well encourage the false sense of understanding that has bedevilled you with respect to a number of other subjects.

It's possible you believe your questions had some purpose other than helping you to understand the counterexamples. If so, please state your purpose in asking those questions so we can help you to formulate better questions.

 

[ben m]

In Copernicus' day, there was no notion that anyone should be mindful such possibilities. It seems some think no one should be focusing on these now.

My bold. Not even close. Where are you getting this idea? Where? Your critics have been saying, over and over:

a) Physicists are already very mindful of the possibility of revolutionary paradigm change and are actively engaged in seeking such changes. How is that "no one should be focusing"?

b) Several physics experts here think that you do not know of any new or useful method for "focusing" on paradigm changes, and moreover that you have a poor appreciation for the methods currently in use.

c) More specifically, several physics experts here think that your actual method, insofar as you have one, has produced zero good suggestions but numerous really bad ones, as though your "method" was a bafflegab-encrusted update of the generic crackpot instinct to latch on to simple, old, known-incorrect ideas.

I don't see how that translates into "It seems some think no one should be focusing on these now."

 

[Dancing David]

I propose a third option: that the answer depends on perspective. Carl Sagan said: "To make an apply pie, first create the universe."

From one perspective yes, that claim seems technically true...but it seems very odd. On the other hand: no would be our everyday answer, and doesn't seem entirely correct either.


Working closely with HPS experts in revolutionary scientific during the next revision of TR support guidelines may not be specific enough for some.


If we believe one only has...

...then even if we receive serious, cautious answers, it is hard for us to avoid interpreting them as ...
.


My memory is pretty dodgy, so I don't recall this ever being mentioned as a specific topic previously in this thread, which forces me to ask: What / where have claimed what leads to scientific revolutions?

If you refer to something like "problem solving" in the Nersessian model, I would respond that for Edwin Hubble, the most obvious anomalous data problem was the redshift, which he solved by development of an explanatory model. For Rutherford, the anomalous deflection of alpha particles described at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Rutherford#Rutherford_and_the_Gold_Foil_Experiment
are what I think a reasonable example of the problem which he worked to solve for about 2 years, succeeding with the nuclear model.


I take it as progress to simply have more precise & accurate models, so to me, understanding the structure of scientific creativity as starting with anomalies that become regarded as anomalies needing explaining, and how problem solving leads to beneficial ideas, etc., to me this understanding is likely to be a benefit to scientists even if they can't state exactly how.

BTW - Good questions.

So in the two examples, no benefit from any of yuor ideas, would you like to go through more or do you admit that you can't provide any practical application of your ideas to scientific revolution.

Remember that Fermi, Pauli , Heisenberg and about twenty others still wait.

I again contend that you don't have a basis for any suggestion on how to improve scientific revolutions or paradigm shifts.

 

[Cuddles]

Let me know if I can be of any assistance.

It's painfully obvious that you can't. Again, if you don't understand something and ask questions about it, it's really rather bizarre to insult and argue with the people who do understand it and answer your questions. Sadly, this appears to be fairly common behaviour for you. However, I must thank you for providing a perfect example of exactly the point I made in my previous post.

Thanks Cuddles for raising this important question about whether mathematics is invented or discovered

I did not raise any such question. Perhaps you have me confused with someone else?

 

[Perpetual Student]

It's painfully obvious that you can't. Again, if you don't understand something and ask questions about it, it's really rather bizarre to insult and argue with the people who do understand it and answer your questions. Sadly, this appears to be fairly common behaviour for you. However, I must thank you for providing a perfect example of exactly the point I made in my previous post.

Why don't you review the Wikipedia link I provided and make some meaningful comment instead of carping?
As that Wikipedia article begins,

"Mathematics is the abstract study of topics such as quantity (numbers), structure, space, and change."

Yes, we use a unique language to pursue those topics, but that language is a tool, not the subject. Your comment that mathematics is "essentially just a language" is like saying the human brain is essentially just amino acids.

 

[ben m]

Working closely with HPS experts in revolutionary scientific during the next revision of TR support guidelines may not be specific enough for some.

My main practical recommendation is that improving standards like NSB 07-032 with information from experts in HPS specializing in scientific revolutions is, all things being equal, a good idea. Technically, the recommendations apply to administration of research, not the research.

BurntSynapse, when I say "your recommendations are not specific", I am not asking for specificity regarding what part of the org chart you want to add HPS experts to.

Rather, and this should have been more than clear, I would have been pointing out that HPS experts do not have any specific suggestions about what scientists (or agencies) should do differently. It doesn't matter where they go on the org chart if they don't have any specific, actually-implementable insights.

Is that so hard to understand?

ETA: in the ongoing effort to ask a blunt-enough, no-misinterpretation-possible question: Please show evidence that HPS experts have insights about transformative-research which are specific and concrete enough to lead actual researchers to alter their conduct.