| > Technological advances sometimes happen with blind trial and error rather than any theory. Not with blind trials, but technology has historically advanced (way) ahead of theory most of the time. See, for instance, Clifford D. Connor's "A People's History of Science" or the authoratitive (in philosophy of technology circles) "What Engineers Know and How They Know It" by Walter Vincenti. One of the convincing cases Vincenti describes is the development of wing profiles. Structured, intelligent trial and error (parameter variation) to get to shapes that work, but no theory to speak of (nothing that helps the development, in any case). The rules can be different because science and engineering are different. Linked, but separate. And I've never gotten the relativism charge against Kuhn. In my reading, he doesn't claim one paradigm isn't "really" better than another. He claims that when paradigms compete, there is at that time not an objective test to select between them. That's why belief is required. But again, the proponents of a new paradigm believe (and do their best to argue, rationally) that it is better in some sense. More true. There are many directions in which to move away from ignorance. That competing paradigms take such different routes away from falsity, that they're not both on one dimension, and that one is not incontrovertibly and obviously superior to the other in every way with reference to some imagined objective standard, does not mean that it isn't a step towards a more true and accurate representation of the world. |