Read Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions to understand why rational science develops irrationally.
Since the modern era, science has gained unbounded human trust. The epistemological justification that science is certain truth, along with the material abundance it promised, reinforced faith in it. The development of science and philosophical explanations of the nature of science are inextricably linked. However, since the mid-20th century, new philosophical explanations of the nature of science have allowed us to move away from blind trust in science and engage in critical reflection. The social, historical, and political nature of science and technology began to emerge as the belief that science is definitive knowledge was challenged. Changing views of science changed citizens’ attitudes toward science, and changes in citizens’ attitudes influenced policy decisions, which in turn changed the culture at large.
One philosopher who decisively changed the way science was viewed in the 20th century was Thomas Samuel Kuhn (1922-1996). His new ideas shattered the prevailing consensus about the nature of science until the mid-20th century. In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, published in 1962, he shook the foundations of the traditional belief that science is an activity that moves toward unchanging truths. He noted that science is similar to other human endeavors, such as art and religion, and argued from historical examples that the progress of science has been irrational. How can science, which is rationalized through countless experiments and proofs, develop irrationally? Let’s take a closer look at his argument, which revolutionized the way we view science.
According to Kuhn, the structure of scientific progress consists of a sequence of steps. A society of scientists that accepts a paradigm changes as follows
1. the paradigm is solidified by performing normal science.
2. when problems that cannot be solved by the given paradigm are continuously accumulated in the process of normal science, a paradigm crisis begins to arise.
3. Soon, a paradigm that is completely different from the existing paradigm emerges and enters the stage of scientific revolution, in which two or more paradigms compete with each other.
4. When the new paradigm overtakes the old one and is accepted by the scientific community, a new phase of normal science begins.
Kuhn argued that, historically, the process of a scientific community abandoning the old paradigm and moving on to a new paradigm is mainly driven by external factors such as aesthetic simplicity or beauty, or irrational factors such as the fame of the scientist proposing the new paradigm, or the scientist’s personal philosophy or religion. He cited incommensurability between the two paradigms as the basis. The incommensurability means that because the old paradigm and the new paradigm have different problems that they value and seek to solve, in other words, because the direction of normal science proposed by each paradigm is different, it is impossible to say which of the two paradigms is better. In other words, the two paradigms cannot be compared and evaluated on the same basis. Therefore, the phenomenon of scientists abandoning the old paradigm and adopting the new paradigm cannot be based on any rational criteria, and Kuhn argued that the irrational factors mentioned above are mainly responsible for their choices. In other words, paradigm shifts and scientific advances do not occur by rational choice, but rather by irrational factors, similar to religious conversions.
As Kuhn argues, irrational factors can play a large role in a scientist’s decision to abandon an old paradigm and adopt a new one. This argument seems irrefutable because it is supported by historical examples of scientific progress. However, let’s look at scientific progress from a long-term perspective, when the entire community of scientists fully embraces a paradigm and the paradigm is fully established. From this perspective, I believe that scientific progress is driven by rational factors rather than irrational factors. Before we discuss this further, let’s take a look at how geodynamics came to be accepted as a new paradigm by the scientific community.
We know from common knowledge that Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) was the first to propose the theory of geocentrism. However, more than 1700 years before Copernicus, the ancient Greek astronomer Aristarchus (BC310-BC230) argued that the sun was the center of the universe and that the earth and planets revolved around it. However, his theory did not gain traction in ancient Greece because the society was not ready to accept geocentrism, and there was not enough astronomical evidence to support it. Over time, humans accumulated observational data and deepened their knowledge of astronomy. Based on this, in 1543, Copernicus published On the Rotation of the Heavenly Spheres, in which he systematized his theory of geocentrism. However, his theory was not accepted by his contemporaries because it had the limitation that the main power source used in the heliocentric theory had to be added to fully explain the motion of the heavenly bodies. At this time, German scientist Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) was impressed by Copernicus’ theory and began to study astronomy. In 1609, Kepler proposed his own theory of geocentrism, which addressed the flaws in Copernicus’ theory. Although some people still questioned the geocentric theory, Kepler’s theory was theoretically perfect and gained much more support than before.
The belief that God and humans were at the center of the world was present at the time of Aristarchus, Copernicus, and Kepler’s proposal of geocentrism as a new paradigm, and this belief had a strong influence on the acceptance of the paradigm by the scientific community. The difference between the time of Aristarchus and Copernicus and the time of Kepler was the vast amount of astronomical knowledge that had been accumulated by mankind, and the fact that Kepler’s theory was theoretically more complete than the theories proposed by other scientists. Based on the facts mentioned in the above paragraph, this difference is the reason why Kepler’s epicycles were accepted as a new paradigm by the scientific community. As Kepler rejected the old paradigm of celestial motion and moved to the new paradigm of geocentrism, it is recorded that Kepler’s thinking was influenced by irrational elements of sun worship. However, this is only true for a small group of scientists at the forefront of the new paradigm, not for the majority of scientists in the scientific community. Because the observations and experimental results from the new paradigm provide a rational explanation for problems that the old paradigm could not explain, the majority of scientists are bound to be influenced by these rational factors. They have no choice but to use rational factors as criteria for paradigm shifts. A complete paradigm shift and its full establishment is not the choice of a few scientists at the forefront of a paradigm, but rather the choice of the majority of scientists in a society of scientists. Therefore, if we look at the development of science over the long term, we can see that it happens rationally, contrary to Kuhn’s claim.
However, in order for the above argument to hold, there must be a rational basis for comparing the old paradigm to the new paradigm, i.e., commensurability. According to Kuhn’s argument, there is incomparability between the old paradigm and the new paradigm because there is no reasonable standard by which to compare the two. But consider the goal of science as practiced by humans to date. Science is the acquisition and systematization of knowledge about natural phenomena through experimentation and verification, and its primary purpose is to provide theoretical explanations for natural phenomena. Paradigms emerge under the umbrella of science. Although the direction of normal science is different in each paradigm, the goal and direction of theoretical explanation and systematization of natural phenomena is implicit in the paradigm. In the end, the criterion for comparing two paradigms is which one can provide a more reasonable explanation of natural phenomena and which one can provide a better model of natural phenomena. To summarize the above discussion, given the goals of science, there is comparability between two paradigms because there are reasonable criteria for comparing them. Therefore, it is possible for a community of scientists to rationally choose a paradigm. In the long run, when a community of scientists fully accepts a paradigm and the paradigm is fully established, it can be said that scientific progress occurs rationally by choosing a better paradigm based on the accumulated knowledge and theories.
In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Kuhn interpreted the development of science as a periodic conceptual revolution rather than an accumulation toward truth. He argued that there is no comparability between the old and new science before and after a scientific revolution. He also convincingly argued with historical examples that scientists do not abandon the old paradigm and choose a new one based on rational evidence, but rather because of factors outside of science, such as religious conversion. Kuhn’s argument proclaimed to the academic community that the human endeavor of science is far less objective and less rational than previously believed. However, if we consider the goals of science, there is comparability between the two paradigms, contrary to Kuhn’s argument. Furthermore, if we take a long-term view of scientific progress, it can still be seen as rational. I think Kuhn’s assertion that rational science develops irrationally is quite extreme. However, I think it is important to note that Kuhn makes a convincing case, based on historical examples, that the progress of science to date has been irrational, shaking the foundations of the blind belief that science is absolute truth.
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