Posted by
glen ep ropella on
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/pluralism-in-science-tp7582640p7582677.html
Nicholas Thompson wrote at 04/11/2013 05:57 PM:
> The Village Pragmatist believes that in time, perhaps an extremely long
> time, that scientists will converge on the right method, just as they
> will converge on the final opinion and that, by definition, will be the
> Truth. (Glen – that would be a tautology)
Hm. I think I disagree slightly. Since the scientists are free to
wander outside the bounds set by the convergence, it is not
tautological. Granted, even if, when a scientist crossed the boundary,
they lose their credibility and are called "fringe" or whackos, they may
be capable of wandering around for awhile outside the convergence
boundary, then wander back in. They may even provide negative feedback
for the convergence and widen it a bit.
I'm thinking of people like Thomas Gold, Lima de Faria, Roger Penrose,
David Deutsch ... hell, even people like Jack Parsons.
When that happens, it's not pure deduction anymore. It's induction.
> On Peirce’s account, knowledge is about self control … really, about the
> control of the environment that is impinging on us. When we do
> */this/*, what comes back at us? If I want */that/* to happen, what do
> I do? So, scientists will converge on is a particular relation
> between how the environment will respond when we poke it in a particular
> way and any conception that stands for that relation ….. like the
> periodic table, for instance.
For universal models (like the periodic table), this works fine. And as
long as the environment changes very slowly, this works fine. But in
highly volatile contexts, where the environment changes slowly enough to
entrench us (a few generations? hundreds of years?), does this still
work? Or do we prematurely converge on a set of "laws" that, later, are
no longer laws?
--
glen e. p. ropella, 971-255-2847,
http://tempusdictum.comGovernment never furthered any enterprise but by the alacrity with which
it got out of its way. -- Henry David Thoreau
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