Cognitive Humility and Scientific Progress

2020 ◽  
pp. 139-142
Author(s):  
Olga E. Stoliarova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Progress ◽  
Normal Science ◽  
Scientific Paradigm ◽  
Justification Knowledge ◽  
Revolutionary Science ◽  
The Revolution

What is cognitive (scientific) humility? Is it a virtue or vice? We consider the manifestations of cognitive humility highlighted by I.T. Kasavin, placing them in two contexts – normal science and revolutionary science. Such cognitive virtues as the search for justification, knowledge as confidence (knowledge through testimony), recognition of the limitations of knowledge, and selflessness can work to the benefit of both normal and revolutionary science. The victorious scientific paradigm retroactively justifies its creators, turning them into knights without fear and reproach. Accordingly, the losing scientific paradigm in many respects devalues the virtues of those who advocated it. We come to the conclu­sion that a positive or negative assessment of the facts of cognitive humility de­pends on our attitude to the “norm” and “revolution”, on our interpretation of progress. We also raise the question of whether the virtues of cognitive humility described by I.T. Kasavin can be attributed to T. Kuhn. From an outside histori­cal observer, Kun cannot be denied the cognitive virtues that Kasavin associates with normal science. Despite this, Kuhn made a revolution in socio-humanitarian thought and jointed the ranks of “revolutionary” scientists. This means that man­ifestations of cognitive humility fit as easily into the context of the “revolution” as into the context of the “norm” and are retrospectively evaluated both posi­tively and negatively depending on our preferences.

Machine learning for rediscovering revolutionary ideas of the past

2021 ◽  
pp. 105971232098304
Author(s):  
R Alexander Bentley ◽  
Joshua Borycz ◽  
Simon Carrignon ◽  
Damian J Ruck ◽  
Michael J O’Brien
Keyword(s):  
Language Processing ◽  
Scientific Progress ◽  
Phylogenetic Inference ◽  
The Past ◽  
New Methods ◽  
Inherent Nature ◽  
Social Learning Processes ◽  
High Level ◽  
Scientific Ideas ◽  
Revolutionary Science

The explosion of online knowledge has made knowledge, paradoxically, difficult to find. A web or journal search might retrieve thousands of articles, ranked in a manner that is biased by, for example, popularity or eigenvalue centrality rather than by informed relevance to the complex query. With hundreds of thousands of articles published each year, the dense, tangled thicket of knowledge grows even more entwined. Although natural language processing and new methods of generating knowledge graphs can extract increasingly high-level interpretations from research articles, the results are inevitably biased toward recent, popular, and/or prestigious sources. This is a result of the inherent nature of human social-learning processes. To preserve and even rediscover lost scientific ideas, we employ the theory that scientific progress is punctuated by means of inspired, revolutionary ideas at the origin of new paradigms. Using a brief case example, we suggest how phylogenetic inference might be used to rediscover potentially useful lost discoveries, as a way in which machines could help drive revolutionary science.

scholarly journals El significado de las rocas: El debate de Kuhn y Taylor sobre la base hermenéutica de la ciencia

2012 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonardo Díaz
Keyword(s):  
Charles Taylor ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Thomas Kuhn ◽  
Human Sciences ◽  
Normal Science ◽  
Scientific Revolutions ◽  
Pure Data ◽  
Revolutionary Science ◽  
La Salle University

RESUMENA finales de los años 80s, Thomas Kuhn y Charles Taylor fueron invitados a un debate en La Salle University. Taylor defendió que las ciencias naturales no son ciencias hermenéuticas, pues se fundamentan en datos puros, carentes de significado. Kuhn rechazó la tesis de la existencia de datos puros, sosteniendo que las ciencias naturales operan con significados y poseen una base hermenéutica. En la postura de Kuhn pueden apreciarse ambivalencias como resultado de sus viejos compromisos teóricos con el proyecto explicativo formulado en La estructura de las revoluciones científicas y como mostraré, vinculado a la existencia de una tensión entre dos perspectivas filosóficas sobre la ciencia.PALABRAS CLAVEHERMENÉUTICA, CIENCIA NORMAL, CIENCIA REVOLUCIONARIA, TENSIÓN, CIENCIAS HUMANASABSTRACTBy the end of the 1980s, Thomas Kuhn and Charles Taylor participated in a debate at La Salle University. Taylor defended that natural sciences are not hermeneutical sciences, since they are based on the pure, meaningless data. Kuhn rejected the thesis of the existence of pure data, arguing that natural sciences work with meanings and have a hermeneutic foundation. Kuhn’s position presents ambivalences as a result of his former theoretical commitments with the explicative project formulated in The Structure of the Scientific Revolutions and as I will show, linked to the existence of a tension between two philosophical perspectives on science.KEYWORDSHERMENEUTICS, NORMAL SCIENCE, REVOLUTIONARY SCIENCE, TENSION, HUMAN SCIENCES

scholarly journals When nomenclature matters: Is the “new paradigm” really a new paradigm for the psychology of reasoning?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Markus Knauff ◽  
Lupita Estefania Gazzo Castañeda
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Progress ◽  
Normal Science ◽  
Degrees Of Belief ◽  
New Paradigm ◽  
Theory Of Science ◽  
Psychology Of Reasoning ◽  
Research Programs

For most its history, the psychology of reasoning was dominated by binary exten-sional logic. The “new paradigm” instead puts subjective degrees of belief centre stage, often represented as probabilities. The term “new paradigm” refers to Thomas Kuhn’s popular theory of science, which describes scientific progress as discontinues process of alternating "normal" and "revolutionary" phases. We argue that the “new paradigm” is too vaguely defined and therefore does not allow a clear decision on what falls within its scope and what does not. We also show that before the new de-velopments, the psychology of reasoning was neither in a phase of normal science, nor is the alleged new paradigm as revolutionary as the term suggests. Based on this analysis, we argue that the supposed opposition between a “new” and “old” para-digms hinders progress in the field. A more productive view is that current progress is developing in continuities where rival research programs stimulate each other in a fruitful way. The article closes with some topics where further connections between competing research programs are likely to promote progress in the psychology of reasoning.

scholarly journals A Review of Scientific Progress in Flow in Sport and Exercise: Normal Science, Crisis, and a Progressive Shift

2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 249-271 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Swann ◽  
David Piggott ◽  
Matthew Schweickle ◽  
Stewart A. Vella
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Progress ◽  
Normal Science ◽  
Sport And Exercise

Turning Back to Kuhn

2020 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-19
Author(s):  
Ilya T. Kasavin ◽  
Vladimir N. Porus ◽  
Keyword(s):  
History Of Science ◽  
Expert Knowledge ◽  
Thomas Kuhn ◽  
Normal Science ◽  
Central Concept ◽  
History Of ◽  
Professional Science ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Intellectual Power ◽  
Revolutionary Science

The article examines the problem of interpreting normal and revolutionary science in the concept of Thomas Kuhn. It is shown that the “normal science” is the central concept of the Kuhn’s history of science, designed in accordance with the normative definition of science adopted by him. Such a story serves an internal purpose – to justify the special epistemical status of expert knowledge. But there is also an external goal – to establish professional science as an institution with special epistemological status and social function, which is situated in a center of intellectual power and property. Historians are those who are forced to constantly rewrite history – either following the methodology of “rational reconstruction” or responding to the challenges of their time. To be a “conservative” or a “revolutionary” in the history of science is a choice made not only for philosophical reasons, but also under the influence of the general socio-cultural situation of the epoch.

From Normal Science to Revolutionary One and Vice Versa

2020 ◽  
pp. 148-152
Author(s):  
Alexander Yu. Antonovskiy ◽  
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Normal Science ◽  
Life World ◽  
The World ◽  
Natural Life ◽  
Revolutionary Science

The article poses the question of which science, revolutionary or normal, is more in line with the concept of modernity. We consider the claims to the modernity of both types of sciences and substantiate the conclusion that revolutionary science can be understood as a situational response of scientists to the state of crisis of normal science. The author argues that revolutionary (at some given point in time) science again brings us back to the forgotten question of truth and refer­ence. At first glance, it looks like a turn from technique and calculations, formal­ization and simplification to the world in itself, ontologically unified and inde­pendent of its presentations in certain paradigms. However, revolutionary science in its claim to turn from language to referent turns out to be a reminis­cence of the archaic “Pythagorean attitude” (to “the discovery of true truth, the true being, and design of God” in the sense of M. Weber) and, in turn, does not relieve us of excessive abstractness, loss of connection with reality, and in this sense does not correspond to the concept of modernity. Science is technicized, formalized, quantified, digitalized, and receives an increasingly complex concep­tual description, almost unrelated to natural “life-world” ontologies and realities.

scholarly journals Integrasi Sains dan Agama dalam Perspektif Epistemologi Keilmuan Islam Kontemporer

2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Moh. Turmudi
Keyword(s):  
Logical Positivism ◽  
Thomas Kuhn ◽  
Normal Science ◽  
Revolutionary Science

Artikel ini membahas tentang bagaimana pandangan epistemologi keilmuan Islam kontemporer memandang integrasi sains dan agama, dimana wacana ini saat ini menjadi topik yang banyak diperbincangkan para peneliti dan para ahli, bahkan perguruan tinggi keagamaan Islam di Indonesia juga berusaha membuat model integrasi sains dan agama sebagai visi dan misi, dan jargonnya. Dalam kerangka pengembangan epistemologi Keilmuan di dunia Muslim, review ulang epistemologi sains di Barat juga penting untuk terus dicermati sebagaimana yang telah dikemukakan oleh Thomas Kuhn (teori normal science dan revolutionary science) yang mengkritisi logical positivism. Demikian pula telaah sintesis terhadap rasionalisme dan empirisisme dari mazhab Kantian; model deconstruction Derrida; telaah tentang episteme dari Foucoult; wacana tentang adanya hegemoni kekuasaan (model Gramsci) terhadap perjalanan ilmu; maupun aspek kritisisme dari Habermas. Kesemuanya itu dapat memperkaya wacana dialektis antara agama dan sains di masa depan. Suatu hal yang tidak kalah pentingnya dalam mengembangkan epistemologi keilmuan dalam dunia muslim, analisis Ian G. Barbour tentang upaya pengembangan dialog maupun integrasi antara agama dan sains dapat kita lakukan. Hal ini digunakan sebagai studi perbandingan terhadap teori Islamization of knowledge ala Faruqian dan Naquibian, maupun teori scientification of Islam model Fazlur Rahman (Rahmanian). Demikian pula dimensi spirituality of science sebagaimana yang ditawarkan Seyyed Hossein Nasr.

Replications can cause distorted belief in scientific progress

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michał Białek
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Scientific Progress ◽  
The Public ◽  
Psychological Science

AbstractIf we want psychological science to have a meaningful real-world impact, it has to be trusted by the public. Scientific progress is noisy; accordingly, replications sometimes fail even for true findings. We need to communicate the acceptability of uncertainty to the public and our peers, to prevent psychology from being perceived as having nothing to say about reality.

Scientific progress is like doing a puzzle, not building a wall

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexa M. Tullett ◽  
Simine Vazire
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Progress ◽  
Original Research ◽  
Jigsaw Puzzle ◽  
Replication Research

AbstractWe contest the “building a wall” analogy of scientific progress. We argue that this analogy unfairly privileges original research (which is perceived as laying bricks and, therefore, constructive) over replication research (which is perceived as testing and removing bricks and, therefore, destructive). We propose an alternative analogy for scientific progress: solving a jigsaw puzzle.

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