[From Dag Forssell (930418 14.30)
No sooner do I download my own message, than I realize that slides 1 and
2 should with better clarity be presented as follows:
···
=====================================================================
DESCRIPTIVE PERSPECTIVE: Mechanical Engineering
(Slide 1 of 4)
Bridges Plumbing
Weapons \ / Roads
\ _| |_ /
\ ______________ /
_| | | |_
Vehicles -----> | ENGINEERING | <--- Buildings
> PRACTICE | |
>______________| |
> >__(observations)
>
v
EXPERIENCE
>
>
_____________________v___________________
> >
> OBSERVED PHENOMENA / EMPIRICAL LAWS |
> >
> "Strength" "Performance" "Quality" |
> "Function" |
> >
> Engineering rules (of all kinds) |
> "(Rules of thumb)" "(Codes)" |
>_________________________________________|
>
> _ (predictions)
_______v______ |
> > >
Vehicles <------- | ENGINEERING | ----> Buildings
> PRACTICE |
/ -------------- \
/ | | \
Weapons |_ v v _| Bridges
Roads Plumbing
SCIENCE/THEORY/RULES/PARADIGM/CRAFT/ART (synonyms)
based on: Experience
Observed regularities (statistics, intuitive
Descriptions or formal)
=====================================================================
This change should clarify that the difference between descriptive and
generative theory is in the rule generation, rather than in the rule
application.
As I download, I notice Bill's post on Collecting data about behavioral
regularities: Bill Powers (930418.0900)
It is clear that S-R is a generative theory also. For purposes of my
presentation, I will ignore that, since it has failed, failed, and failed
again. It is NOT a *TESTED* and *VALIDATED* first principle. That is why
all research is still effectively strictly empirical and cannot be
extrapolated.
A comment on Kuhn. Gary Cziko commented on my video that he disagreed
with me on the idea that it will take a generation change for PCT to be
accepted. I was quoting Kuhn, more than anything, but I do think it will
prove true. We are dealing with a transition from a purely descriptive
(and accordingly fuzzy and in a lot of ways useless) set of sciences to
a generative science.
Gary noted that it took much less time for the revolution between the
Phlogiston theory of chemistry and the Oxygen theory of chemistry. Please
note that the Phlogiston theory was a generative theory, a "hard"
science. It was in the process of testing it with careful quantitative
experiments, and as it failed, that Oxygen was defined. For this reason,
the revolution went quickly. Even so, Kuhn says in _The structure of
Scientific Revolutions,_ page 150-151:
How, then, are scientists brought to make this transposition? Part
of the answer is that they are very often not. Copernicanism made
few converts for almost a century after Copernicus' death. Newton's
work was not generally accepted, particularly on the Continent, for
more than half a century after the Principia appeared. Priestley
never accepted the oxygen theory, nor Lord Kelvin the
electromagnetic theory, and so on. The difficulties of conversion
have often been noted by scientists themselves. Darwin, in a
particularly perceptive passage at the end of his Origin of Species,
wrote: "Although I am fully convinced of the truth of the views
given in this volume . . ., I by no means expect to convince
experienced naturalists whose minds are stocked with a multitude of
facts all viewed, during a long course of years, from a point of
view directly opposite to mine. . . . [B]ut I look with confidence
to the future,--to young and rising naturalists, who will be able
to view both sides of the question with impartiality."' And Max
Planck, surveying his own career in his Scientific Autobiography,
sadly remarked that "a new scientific truth does not triumph by
convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather
because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up
that is familiar with it."
When you are dealing with the descriptive life sciences (that we are up
against) and their practicioners are not interested in any testing, it
is not to be expected to have a short and sweet revolution.
Best, Dag