L'Estructura de les revolucions científiques (1962)

how paradigms form and change

Frustratingly verbose and repetitive. I actually made sure at one point my copy isn't a misprint with some pages repeated. This book neither explains nor concludes anything and the one point it does make could fit into an article. ( )

I read this book a little over a month ago and have no memories of it. It was OK I guess? ( )

Rated: C+
Amazing analysis of the historical progression of science in general as well as within specific fields of science. Challenging to fully understand. Good that I had physics, chemistry and engineering course work so that I could recall some of the names and breakthroughs the author mentioned. Much of what he describes from a scientific perspective, in part, I found applicable to describing how other human endeavors progress (e.g., Values; bias of the establishment; stimulus-sensations-perception-interpretation). ( )

Though this is over 50 years old I am just getting around to reading it; this edition includes the postscript addressing critics. Very happy that it is not too technical. This will inspire me to read more history of science, particularly the philosophy.

I had of course read _about_ it for many years but always assumed it above my head… turns out is it very accessible to the non-scientist. Kuhn was a Philosopher of Science History; to me the book discusses how science communities build and sometimes replace their common values and ideas. Though he states he makes no claim to its specific applicability to other fields, to me it seems quite generalized- it is a fascinating overview of how people learn how to see the world. Evidently subsequent to its publication the Social Sciences made quite good use of it. Of course it has its detractors as well.

I wish more people would read books like this… it might help to combat the public anti-science attitude of the last few decades, as can be particularly felt by the recent confusion of our pandemic response (although surprisingly or not, some people have interpreted Kuhn in the opposite way and have accused him of relativism… ). It has introduced me (via further reading) to the concept of post-positivism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postpositivism) and to Michael Polanyi (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Polanyi) ( )