Conversation

I haven’t read the book, but from the review it sounds like it errs in accepting the outdated Romantic Hero model of A Handful of Great Scientists. It’s probably true most people doing science are unfit for it and produce negative value; but great science comes out of scenes:
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A problem with a solution: scientists’ ideas of how science works are based on philosophy of science from 50-70 years ago. Before that, there was logical positivism, which is conveniently forgotten because it was so wrong.
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Then there was Popper, who was sensible. Then Kuhn, who was an evil Relativist and didn’t believe in objective reality.* And then Feyerabend, who Took It Way Too Far.† * Actually, he did. † Actually, he did.
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And after Feyerabend, in the standard narrative, nothing. The end of the history of the philosophy of science. Presumably everyone realized it was silly and dropped it. And that leaves us with Popper, who must have been right because the rest were wrong.* * Actually, he wasn’t.
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In fact, the philosophy of science has made substantial progress post-Feyerabend. (It pains me to say this given my low opinion of philosophy in general.) The “Stanford School” (Hacking, Galison, Cartwright, et al.) developed quite different, more accurate and useful accounts.
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Their accounts can’t be reduced to a phrase or paragraph. Sciencing is actually complicated—who would have thought? Given all the other nonsense scientists are now required to waste their time on, maybe it’s unreasonable to expect them to read difficult philosophy as well.
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