Science in Action-class discussion

According to Harris, incommensurability either doesn't exist or is the result of stubbornness of people. So it's not about fields, incommensurable paradigms, but who do not want to change? What if it is a group of stubborn people/an entire discipline of stubborn people? We get a network of people that begin a new school? go through the motions of making scientific knowledge as exemplified in Science in Action.

In Science in Action, Latour notes that scientists have certain rules of method by which they communicate knowledge. These include:

• declaring facts/machines in the process of generating a theory
  
• eliminate all preconceived notions of what constitutes knowledge (13)

Science in the making is personable but on delivery it is stripped of all traces of constructed ownership.

(21) The rules of method
Be present during the process and after the conclusion. Positive modalities--sentence that leads a statement away from its conditions of production and so makes the statement solid. used to build something else. Negative modalities--a statement that leads to conditions of production; your claim is used to question its source and cite of production instead of being used to build something else. it makes (23) citations are about changing the status of other people's claims. It takes other people to turn claims into a fact. In moving an idea toward the lab, the certainty of the idea is diminished, the process called into question. Negative doesn't necessarily have a bad connotation; it may simply move the number to the other side of zero. An artefact leads to the death of the author and so does a fact (where your ideas become common knowldge)
Shifting modalities: elevate those arguments that support yours and demote those that don't in the form of footnotes--that's the rhetoric of science!

(25) A sentence, depending on how it is inserted in other sentences may become more of a fact or artifact. A given sentence is validated by other sentences. The way modalities change claims...(28) A statement is judged on the merits of validation accorded to it by subsequent sentences. This means that coming up with facts and machines as itself a process--a collective process.
Science does not defer to ethos?
(33) However, a scientific document is validated by collective claims, which qualify ideas and quantify proponents, who are named. Ironically, this proves isolates the reader, who feels compelled to assent in the face of overwhelming logical and authoritative backing.

The second rule of method
The First rule requires the study of science and technology in action. The second rule goes beyond the "intrinsic qualities" of a statement to focus on its construction given the various inputs. Note: In scientific literature:

1. you can give up--so the text won't count
2. you can go along--believe everything
   
3. you cab read the text critically--tear it apart
   

Laboratories

Labs are about inscribing facts, creating data, which then becomes the fact that gets proliferated. The act of creation in the lab that goes into the creation of scientific knowledge may actually take away from the validity of science.
Can his theory be:
misused?
ignored?--papers that do not get cited cease to matter; the validity of their claims is eroded (41)
overused?
create new paradigms?
It's improbable to convey exactly what one means--a very Platonic concept. How can texts withstand a hostile environment?

The lab is where the scientific text originates such as patients, tumors, i.e. what scientists present to us as work completed after the lab. Its been tested, tried, and validated so that all we see is the finished product. That final product, however, may not allay out fears because it does not show the whole picture (64).

Laboratory observations allow us to witness the transformations. Janus--two-faced/conflict/reversal. Science in action is a drama of gran orchestration. there is a plce where ideas become reality..and language is the reality

In Method I when we doubt scientific literature we dig up the references and sources used. In Method II do we go to the labs, conduct our own experiment so we ca confirm/disprove the facts? Going to the lab is going away from the literature. It requires instruments, tools that provide a visual display of a scientific text. (68)

An instrument mediated by the scientists becomes both visual and audio with the metanarrative from the technician, i.e. a lay person does not get it without the interpretation of the technician, e.g. interpreting x-rays, lie detector tests, etc.
(74) The text can speak speak powerfully for itself when an instrument in the hands of the dissenter yields the results claimed by the technician. In the face of incontrovertible evidence are any further questions necessary? The dissenter may be looking for an "aggregate of possible answers" (74) which means that no one step necessarily leads to the aforegone conclusions. So we move from disbeliving the literature (Library) to manipulating the isntrument in the lab. A trial of strength(s) both for the dissenter and the technician. The technician represents musltiple aggregates until disproven, at which point he then speaks for himself. Trials of strengths contain objectivity (the technician) and subjectivity (the dissenter)--a delicate balance of power.

Counter labs (79) subjectivity on the part of the dissenter can be tied to ideology and religion (84). Dissenters argue, mobilize intruments, inscriptions but also are influenced by New Objects--what it does--something that emerges in the process?
The core of the second basic princpile (90) is the act of defining a new object.

Appealing to Nature
Can nature settle the dissens arising from the literature and from the labs? nature is like God--brings abou resolution for no one side. Nature adds to the dispute only after its ended (98).

The third rule of Method
Scientists engage in double talk. (99) "since the elements of controversy is the cause of nature's represetation not the consequence, we can never use the outcome--nature--t explain how and why a controvery has been settled (99). Scietists shift from:
hardcore activists to dyed in the wool realists (100)

Tribunas of reason
From weak to strong rehtoric
establishing proof is a costly and drawn out process; that means only a few ca do it, hence techno science comes about in new circumstances using a big amount of resources--powerful, yet small. A NETWORK. Techno-sciece fuses together the technological and social context of science. Scientific knowledge is social, historical, and sustained by material networks.
Non-technicians/experts are often seen as offering mere opinion that do not hold up to reason. Through networks, scientific knowldge can be widely dissemniated (187) or risk two binaries--rational (focuses on the phenomena) /irrational (focus on the people who conjecture). Accusations of irationality can be broken (190). differences in beliefs and knowledge are not a result of cognitive abilities, methods, adverbs. the world is logical only--it's symetery between claims. We can undertsnd ideas by mapping associations. How cause and effect are attributed; what points link to which> what size, strengths the links possess..legitimacy of the spokesperson. How when controversy arises, these elements are modified. All these questions can be raised anywhere.
Hard facts--claims encounter other claims, which may or may not be hard claims.


This view of science may be unsettling, however, lets focus.
Focus on: what ways science is rhetorical and the significance of that; the fact that science is rhetorical does not in any way undermine its power because the rhetoric is invisible. We are now making rhetoric visible. The authority of science remains a source/ standard of knowledge, as a social, educational, cultural force. We are creating transparent the knowledge that makes science.
Latour gives us a new phase: a social study of science. He moves us from abstract philosophy, paradigms, epsitemological anarchies to what goes on isnide those anarchies. We are inside the paradigms and examine how they work.

p14
The graphic presentation
Scientists rarely quote; when they do they want to distance themselves from the idea while demonstrating that they are aware of its existence. The sentence moves from a stable fact to a controversy--making it disputable. Moves from fact-->blackbox-->controversy-->lab-->quote-->fact-->lead to the nature/cycle of scientific fact.

A big piece is about modalities--the level of certainty. You have a statement, make a claim and get the paper published. There is no reaction; you are not read (ignored). To be read, you need to find an opening, a crack, a niche in the discipline so you can construct knowledge in that field. Death: you have no impact
The alternative is people pick up your ideas and cite you.
Latour focuses on who you are cited (modalities). your claim is not taken at face value; it's used to make their own arguments. You could be misquoted (which weakens the person's argument); take a piece of the claim and run with it, which misconstrues if you beleive there is a special truth. The criteria for determining misuse--


Citations al Latour
Invisbile colleges--a dimension of science--where certain authors do the work repeatedly so they get cited in that field more times. The interconnections between colleagues where the collaboration often leads to dis/association.

The Prospectus
Title--working title
Journal--mention possible ournal
Overview
Problem/opportunity/niche
Objectives/Criteria (think Latour)-- acouple of sentences
Reources
Plan for delivering of article
Bibliography
Sample article and author guidelines from Journal
Submission
Due: October 10th.

Bruno Latour’s Science in Action

We can see the science in action by opening the blackbox of science as we follow engineers and scientists through society by following the "cycles of accumulation. Behind all scientific texts lie inscriptions, and all inscriptions are produced through instruments: this is what scientists do in labs, in action. The end result is what is presented to the public in the form of graphs, equations, photos--all scientific texts.

Latour's Science in Action approaches science rhetorically, by highlighting the persuasive and political work that must be done to establish a scientific or technological fact. He bases his analysis on three central figures:

• science as war
• as network, and
  
• as Janus-faced --to help delineate the junctures between Ready Made Science & Science in the Making

Latour attempts to demythologize the authority of science through setting out three rules:
We will enter facts and machines while they are in the making; we will carry with us no preconceptions of what constitutes knowledge; we will watch the closure of the black boxes and be careful to distinguish between two contradictory explanations of this closure, one uttered when it is finished, the other while it is being attempted. This will constitute our first rule of method and will make our voyage possible. ( pp. 13-15.)

The rules of Method

Rules of Method

Rule 1 We study science in action and not ready made science or technology; to do so, we either arrive before the facts and machines are blackboxed or we follow the controversies that reopen them
Rule 2 To determine the objectivity or subjectivity of a claim, the efficiency or perfection of a mechanism, we do not look for their intrinsic qualities but at all the transformations they undergo later in the hands of others
Rule 3 Since the settlement of a controversy is the cause of Nature's representation, not its consequence, we can never use this consequence, Nature, to explain how and why a controversy has been settled.

There are several increases in the number of elements that help establish a claim--papers, labs, new objects, professions, nature, etc (179)

Rule 4 Since the settlement of a controversy is the cause of Society's stability, we cannot use Society to explain how and why a controversy has been settled. We should consider symmetrically the efforts to enroll human and non-human resources.
Rule 5 We have to be as undecided as the various actors we follow as to what technoscience is made of; every time and inside/outside divide is built, we should study the two sides simultaneously and make the list, no matter how long and heterogeneous, of those who do the work
Rule 6 Confronted with the accusation of irrationality, we look neither at what rule of logic has been broken, nor at what structure of society could explain the distortion, but to the angle and direction of the observer's displacement, and to the length of the network thus being built.
Rule 7 Before attributing any special quality to the mind or to the method of people, let us examine first the many ways through which inscriptions are gathered, combined, and tied together and sent back. Only if there is something unexplained once the networks have been studied shall we start to speak of cognitive factors.

Principles

Principles are Bruno Latour's personal summary of the empirical facts, after a decade of work in the area.

First principle The fate of facts and machines is in later users' hands; their qualities are thus a consequence, not a cause, of collective action.
Second principle Scientists and engineers speak in the name of new allies that they have shaped and enrolled; representatives among other representatives, they add these unexpected resources to tip the balance of force in their favour.
Third principle We are never confronted with science, technology and society, but with a gamut of weaker and stronger associations; thus understanding what facts and machines are is the same as understanding who the people are.
Fourth principle The more science and technology have an esoteric content the further they extend outside; thus 'science and technology' is only a subset of technoscience.
Fifth principle Irrationality is always an accusation made by someone building a network over someone else who stands in the way; thus, there is no Great Divide between minds, but only shorter and longer networks; harder facts are not the rule but the exception, since they are needed only in a very few cases to displace other on a large scale out of their usual ways.
Sixth principle History of technoscience is in a large part the history of the resources scattered along networks to accelerate the mobility, faithfulness, combination and cohesion of traces that make action at a distance possible.

Fayerabend's Objection

Objects to the measuring sticks for knowledge across cultures; these include observations, experiments, measurement, etc, as basis for scientific truth. Any method that narrows things down to a stable set of parameters is anathema to Fayerabend; not even language is main element of reality.

Overlapping paradigms:
(17) The creation of a theme (the relationship between idea and action) juxtaposed with propaganda, brainwashing. Facts are constructed from raw data and interpretation...it's a process of symbolizing. The fact is already a construction (see Bacon). Even the medium that light moves in skews what we see.
Philosophy is important in this discussion because there are a lot of assumptions made
(21) linear accumulation is being called into question here
(22)...facts and statements..calls into question the accumulation of knowledge and discipline and the testing of fact against what? Criticism of sensory data and the medium that the data goes through being abstract and not being subject to criticism.can't compare a fact to the material medium because of the related problems (medium, ideal, ) how do you check a fact? what do you compare it to; not even critical rationality (Popper's falsification--to prove something is true you have to prove it's false). We can compare facts to a dreamworld (22). You wipe the slate and admit everything into science.
All things being equal, a fairy tale equals science--depending on different belief systems...
(29)

Against Method

Fayerabend asserts that scientists have no particular claims on truth. To him, the rationality of science does not really exist and the special status and prestige of scientists are based on their own claims to objective truth. Progress in science is because scientists break every principle in the rationalists' rule book and adopt the principle that "anything goes." Individual theories are not consistent with one another, and since there is no single "scientific method," scientific success flows not only from rational arguments, but also from a mixture of subterfuge, rhetoric, conjecture, politics and propaganda
The history of science is not based on facts and their conclusion. It contains:

• ideas
• interpretation of facts
• problems resulting from different interpretations
  
• mistake, etc

Scientific facts are ideational (11). The road to scientific education i. defines research domain ii. separates it from others iii. gives it its own logic iv. train in that logic v. purge the trainees of all sense of personhood, even language so as to get the bare facts.

Chapter 1
Method viz historical research presents new paradigms in the scientific revolution resulted from (a) scientists breaking with the set of methodologies (b) refusing to be bound by set methods (14), which is a prerequisite to the growth of knowledge. Interest plays a bigger role in the growth of knowledge (17). Idea + action; what comes first? Action may help solidify the idea better.

ideas-->other ideas-->new instruments -->evidence
-->new research-->..........................-->new theories
All resulting in new ideologies that can provide independent arguments to account for some of it (17). Anarchism helps to achieve progress in any one of the sense (18). Note:
1. you cannot have a fixed method/theory of rationale

Chapter 2
Testing empiricism
This can be done through facts, experimental results, and data supporting the theory. What about the counter rule? When the hypothesis is inconsistent with accepted theories and when the hypotheses are inconsistent with established facts. How to obtain evidence that refutes a theory "use alternative, when refutations have discredited the orthodox theory (20-21). Develop a pluralistic methodology (21) compare ideas and other ideas NOT experience. In the process, discard wholly, or in part; accept others, build/cumulative a body of knowledge that consists of "mutually incompatible alternatives" (21)--> an articulation of theories that helps form man's consciousness.
1. Break the cycle
2. use a new conceptual system that clashes with the norm; use a counter induction.
Bottom line: why against method? All methodologies have their limits (23).

Chapter 3
why the counter rule? [use hypothesis, inconsistent with well-established theories]
Precipitate real progress and not merely arbitrary change (26). Walls are created by the consistency condition (25-26) stick with what you know. So: invent and articulate alternatives then produce refuting facts; use rational inquiry...pluralism of ideas and forms of life.
Doing, insinuating and assumes a great deal of ignorance in follow up by example that illustrate the contention.

Chapter 4
Overcoming the status quo in science
1. adopt a pluralistic methodology (33)
2. compare theories with other theories not with experience/data/facts
3. tries to improve not discard view that appear wavy.
Sources of alternative theories (see bottom pp33-34)
Past, future, myths. prejudices, fantasies
Scientific chauvinism exemplified in many ways. Advocates pluralism of theories and metaphysical view for methodology as essential to a humanitarian outlook.

Chapter 5
"No single theory ever agrees with the known facts, objects, domain (34)
1. Qualitative failures
2. quantitative adjustments
Theories with qualitative defects need not to be rejected, e.g. Newton's theory of colors (44) and classical mechanics (46)
50: Method demands that a theory be judged by experience, and be rejected if it contradicts accepted basic statements.
Fayerabend: reject for these demands are useless. New paths: Hume: theories can be derived from facts where there are no facts, no theories can be derived/
Solution: drop the demands for facts before theory. Revise methodology to include counter induction and unsupported hypotheses.
51: eliminate all rules even on the basis of falsification claim: theory may be inconsistent with evidence, not because it is incorrect, but because the evidence is contaminated, e.g. Copernican theory.
52: Evidence should never judge our theories directly.

Chapter 15
Contemporary criticisms.
Context of discovery and context of justification norms and facts/observational terms theoretical term
147: 2. Popper's critical rationalism
3. incommensurability
Fayerabend attempts to draw methodological conclusion from historical examples. In doing so, he confounds 2 distinct contexts, namely, discovery and justification. Discovery--> may be due to serendipity, it is irrational
Justification-->has to be ordered
Logical reconstruction of the conceptual structure testing of the theories
Can science advance with no strong interaction between the 2 domains.
Do scientists often go against the rules?
148: 1: they invent theories
2: contemplate the new theories in a relaxed fashion
3: make moves that go against methodological rules by:

• interpreting evidence in a manner that fits theories ideas
• eliminate differences by ad hoc procedures or
• push aside/refuse to take differences seriously

149: Method as a prescription
history as description ---these two are not boundary lines; they are temporary
methodology: what should be done
Theories may be removed for conflicting observations, which may be removed from theoretical reasons.

Learning involves both observation and theory without privileging one over the other. Experiences is developed together with theoretical assumptions not before.

150: incommensurability and rationality of science; what so the standard rational argument?
151: be able to produce rules, standards, restrictions so we can measure against irrational behavior/ Establish rules and standards of criticism. Attempts to protect from criticisms tale away from rationality.
Natural science connects criticism to experiments and observation. the content of theory is the sum total of its potential falsifiers (151)

How does critical rationalism develop?
1, Start with a problems--expectations not fulfilled/mistaken irregularity because the expected regularity is amiss.
2. Try to solve the problem by

1. inventing a theory that is relevant/falsifiable

3. Criticism of the theory put forth if done successfully, a new problem ensues it (a) explains the success of the theory (b) why it failed. A new theory articulates the old and the news (denies mistakes, makes additional predictions).
153: Facts are discovered then explained by theories. Dangers of living within the rules of critical rationalism produce monsters frowning upon personal connection between entities may harm people.
So science needs to be reformed to make it more anarchic/subjective (Kierkeguard). It is not possible to have both science as we know it and the rules of critical traditionalism. Why?
1. Ideas, practices, etc, do not start with a problem. If they start from play, should that aspect be excluded?
2. Strict falsification wipes out science--not permit it to start.
The principles of critical rationalism are:

• take falsification seriously
• increase content
• avoid ad hoc hypotheses
• be honest

Logical empiricism demands:

• -precision
• base theories on measurements
  
• avoid vague/unstable ideas

Critical rationalism gives an inadequate account of science.
Attempting to make science rational will wipe away science. The so called deviations and errors are what permit science to develop. Reason must frequently be dismissed for progress to occur.

Appendix I
Logic does not operate in science. Science is not a measure of excellence. Initial impulses (215) awareness, individual consciousness (216). How change was effected; observer questions: the details f an e.g. Hagel; traditional position, negation, synthesis. A starting place for establishing rules of thumb.
Participant question--attitude that participants have towards the intruder/
217: Pragmatic philosophy is taken where there is no way out but to conform. A pragmatist is both participants (what to do) and can observer what lends that?
Platonisms--assumes new entities, real, entities of common sense imperfect
Sophism--natural objects critical objects of mathematical unrealistic, simple minded. (219)

Platonists and ideal forms of knowledge despise existing knowledge. Value statement pertaining to science have their origin is tradition. They do not reflect individual preferences. So what the relationship between readers and practice?
222. 1: reason guides practice--it holds independent authority from practices, traditions--ideal
2: reason receives content and authority from practice.
Naturalism describes how practice works and what principles guide it.
223: the two ought work together with the practice helping to correct/improve the ideal
225: on traditions--neither good nor bad. Rationality is neither good nor bad. Does not provide an alternative to tradition. Tradition assumes desirable qualities when compared with some other so as to reveal its shortcomings (229)/

All methodologies have their limits. Idealism claims rationality to justify its actions, which makes it dogmatic and critical. The demand for content increase/drive knowledge, pushes people beyond the accepted limit.
235: Non-contradiction as a necessary condition for reason/
236: Knowledge qualitative and observatory (Aristotle). Today knowledge is quantitative and theoretical. It all depends on privilege and on the culture.

Postscript on Relativism
268: relativism as much a chimaera of absolutism

Appendix 2

the separation of science and non-science is not only artificial but also detrimental to the advancement of knowledge.
The language of observations: the absence of language does not hinder scientific inquiry

Against Method
attacks the idea that science has a single method that has stood the test of time that advances science
irrational ideas are the core of science as they are the basis upon which revolutions are built.

The method is that is that science works by collecting facts and inferring theories from them but that cannot be because theories do not result from facts in a logical sense.
falsification is not the answer as some theories are not falsifiable and have some observations that do not fit perfectly those that exist are not in agreement with the statements. every theory has flaws.
Like Kuhn, Feyerabend believed that standard logical-empiricist accounts of confirmation, theory, and other topics were quite inadequate to explain the major transitions that have occurred in the history...

Three Biographies
Kuhn's incommensurability is the relations between 2 scientific traditions separated by a scientific revolution and implies:

• a change in the problems to be addressed by theory
• change in methods and concepts
• people in different paradigms practice their trades in different worlds (152-153)

So to Kuhn, scientific discovery is not cumulative.

Fayerabend's incommensurability began with his perceived imitation in the notion of observational (154) terms applied. Incommensurability is the tie between two succeeding general scientific theories (154). Meanings and usage play as big a role in paradigm shifts as do in/observable features of the world (155). Incommensurability has a lot to do with meanings and descriptive terms of theories being "mutually inconsistent" (155).

Kuhn and Fayerabend both address the same phenomena -- a particular form of theory change with strange properties (157). Kuhn was concerned with modern physics and Aristotle 's diminished role in it. To Fayerabend, observation sentences are strongly theory dependent. Fayerabend's trigger is philosophical while Kuhn's is historical, brought about by a particular experience. A range of theories is subject to incommensurability. Underscore: Fayerabend: fundamental theories that are interpreted in particular ways --realism, e.g. Greeks,-->classical antiquity; impetus-->classical mechanics, etc.
Such theories once interpreted a specific way (realism) influence their respective objects.

could no be understood as an addition to Kuhn--wider range including small unexpected discoveries. To Kuhn "the new development the oldest" (160). New also carries new meaning shifts.

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

Thomas S. Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions chronicles major turning points in scientific development. Notable names in this field include Einstein, Newton, Copernicus, and Lavoisier. See also
and
How revolutions came about

1. The community rejected the then honored scientific theory in favor of one incompatible with it (6)
2. Problem--solution: what presented itself as a problem and what admitted a s solution
3. The transformation factor in which both the scientific community and the world were forever transformed

Outline
Scientific revolutions can also emerged from not so revolutionary episodes (6-7) if they were resisted no matter how revolutionary. New inventors of theories challenge the status quo on many levels. A complete overhaul of theory and practice of theory that has long held. the cummulative effect of new inventions is science is not wihout price; it means re-evaluation, alteration of the familiar, and a shift of the network of theory hence the new discoveries are revolutionary (8).

Key terms: norma science as a puzzle-solving activity

The route to normal science.
What is normal science? it is research based on one or more past scientific achievements accalaimed (10)
Paradigms are classics of science that:

1. were unprecendented as achievements that attracted groups hitherto committed to a previous position
2. opn-ended for a new group to resolve

Paradigms combine law, theory and instrumentation (10).
How does a science develop before it becomes a paradigm?
It begins with a fundamental disagreement, for example, how electrical research began. So early fact gathering is crucial.

What makes a theory a paradigm?

• beat the comptetion--be better than the current
• need not explain all the facts

underlying--truth emerges more from error than does confusion (18)
Effects of a new paradigm:

• It eviscerates the status quo
• loses its members to the new movement
• ignores those who won't change
• Gives rise to specialized journals along with a new and more rigid defintion.

The nature of normal science
If a paradigm is a work that has been done, what follows therafter? A paradigm is an object; it calls for further rticulation (23) under strictre conditions (23). examples of paradigms (23). here is normal science in action: "normal scientific researc is directed to the articulation of pehnomena and theories supplied by the paradigm (24). What is normal/paradigmatic research cosnsits of scientific investigation:

1. class of facts that the paradigm shows reeal the nature of things
2. facts that compare with predictions frm the paradigm's theory
3. empirical work is invloved in articulating and solving problems that resulted in the paradigm

Articlualting a Paradigm

• serendipity as discussed by Bacon
• developing special apparatus, precision
• exploration (29)

Theoratical problems: So normal science consists of

1. determining significant facts
2. match the facts with theo theory
3. articulate the theory

Normal science as puzzle-solving method
Results-obtained in research help solidify the values of the paradigm. Knowing the reults before hand does not take away from the hows--puzzle--solving--> therein lies the challenge
What are puzzles?

• Problems that have solutions
• stated in conceptual terms
• problems must have rules that limit the nature of acceptable solutions and the steps to obtain them (38)

It calls for commitment to conceptual/instrumental; theoretical/methodological is how normal science is related to solving puzzles. Paradigms can guide research even in the absence of rules (42).

Priority Paradigms
Careful examination involves isolating the in-thing and examining the rules that govern "direct inspection of paradigms " (44) common attributes--resemblances (45). Scientists work from establishing models; neither questions nor answers are relevant to scientists. paradigms determine normal science without rules.

• rules are difficult to discover
• theories come with applications
• paradigms guide research by direct modeling as though abstracting ideas (47). paradigms need not be applied to a very broad scientific group (49).

Anomaly and the structure of scientific discoveries
Normal science is cumulative; successful in its aim, extension of scope, and precision of scientific knowledge (52). Novelties are not the goal of normal science; they are only stumbled upon.

• Discovery and invention became aware of anomaly
• explore the anomaly
• adjust the theory so there is no anomaly when X then Y that becomes scientific fact (53)
• Fact/theory discovery involves recognizing that something is and what it is (55).
  

Discovery involves an extended process sometimes discovery through accident (x-rays); does assimilation of discovery lead to paradigm change. novelty emerges with difficulty (64) against the backdrop of resistance and expectations (64). Normal sciences while not connected to novelties cause them to come about.

Crisis and the emergence of scientific theories (66)
fact: there are no categorical nor permanent distinctions between fact and theory and discovery and inventions; e.g the discovery of oxygen is sees as discovery (by Priestley) and Oxygen as invention (by Lavoisier).
When existing rules fail, it becomes fertile ground for new ones to develop..
case: astronomical system; Joseph Black--Co2; phlogiston theory (70) was the basis of theory research that resulted in "proliferation of numerous versions of the theory indicating a crisis. Alternate theories can account for one source of data. they work with existing theories until unable then they are retooled (76).

The response to crisis
Crises are necessary conditions for the emergence of new novel theories (77). How do scientists respond to the existence of crises? they never renounce the current paradigm and do not treat anomalies as counter.
rejecting the current paradigm is accepting the new after comparisons with each other and against the anomaly (77). paradigms that are the basis for research do not resolve all problems. If they do, they cease to be fodder and become instead tools like geometric optics (79).
Theory and fact have to come together. Falsification (80) was necessary in the search for confirmation. Einstein's relativity fixed Newton's motion of Mercury. Incremental data results when crises worsens stereotypes then paradigm shift happens (89).
Crises blur the paradigm and allow rules to loosen for normal research. both trigger research akin to the pre-paradigm days. Crises close in one of 3 ways:

• normal science proves able
• problem resists new approaches
• a new candidate for paradigm emerges

A new paradigm my emerge before a crisis has been recognized (86). random research can be produced by anomaly. Normal to extraordinary research results from:

• the proliferation of articulations
• the willingness to do anything
• the expression for explicit discontent
• the recourse to philosophy and debate over fundamentals (91

Nature of and necessary Scientific Revolutions
What are scientific revolutions?
what is their function in scientific development.
Scientific revolutions are non-developmental/cumulative episodes that see an older paradigm replaced by another either wholly or in part (92).
Why revolution?
An existing paradigm ceases to function adequately (92) malfunctioning can lead to revolutions based on the notion: what is the problem? what is the solutions?
No paradigm solves all inherent problems.
A change in paradigm is often a change in worldview (113...the Gestalt) The scientists may deduce differently from observing the same thing but that does not make that thing the same. Aristotle--constrained
Galileo--Pendulum swing stones (121)

Data are not unequivocally stable (121) but "interpretation is central to the enterprise that explores it (122) by articulating, not correcting it. Worldview comes about by making distinctions which leads to a search for an operational definition )13-135).

The Resolution of Revolutions (144)
What is the process of paradigm change? Individuals see things differently, focus on them are new to the field. The researcher solves puzzles using various alternative moves within the existing paradigm only when they fail is the paradigm subjected to test against a competing (emerging) one. Verification: is a theory probable in the light of possible relevant tests not verifiable.
verification too;--natural selection that seeks out the most viable among alternatives.
Karl Popper denies the existence of verification and prefers falsification, which theory fits the facts better(147)
Incommensurability of standards between the two schools of thought (Einstein--relativity; Copernicus earth rotates).
The transition between incommensurable/competing must occur at once
152-153 only after acceptance does a new paradigm cause dissent and questions no in h revolution into textbook where it is debated (157) resolution.

Does Kuhn's notion of paradigm change

Assumptions of traditional science as per Pratt

• Objective--the senses as non-filters; the mind and senses don't play games
• language as conduit
• linear and accumulative
• accurate record
• control of nature

Kuhn takes issue with the notion of "science-as-cumulation" (96) of knowledge that can be corrected by observation. What Kuhn says about objectivity:
pg 96 is he critiquing Pratt and Locke? Kuhn disputes cumulation, given the paradigmatic shifts that occur in revolutions "the normal-scientific tradition that emerges from a scientific revolution is not only incompatible but often actually incommensurable with that which has gone before" (103). Kuhn equates the paradigm to perception.

Rhetoric and Incommensurability

Incommensurability, According to dictionary.reference.com means having no common basis, measure, or standard of comparison; utterly disproportionate, having no common measure, Impossible to measure or compare
Commensurable --> measurable

Plato/Stanford distinguishes value incomensurability, which is incommensurability between values that must be distinguished from the kind of incommensurability associated with Paul Feyerabend (1978, 1981, 1993) and Thomas Kuhn (1977, 1983, 1996) in epistemology and the philosophy of science. Feyerabend and Kuhn were concerned with incommensurability between rival theories or paradigms — that is, the inability to express or comprehend one conceptual scheme, such as Aristotelian physics, in terms of another, such as Newtonian physics.

In contrast, "contemporary inquiry into value incommensurability concerns comparisons among abstract values (such as liberty or equality) or particular bearers of value (such as a certain institution or its effects on liberty or equality). The term “bearer of value” is to be understood broadly. Bearers of value can be objects of potential choice (such as a career) or states of affairs that cannot be chosen (such as a beautiful sunset). Such bearers of value are valuable in virtue of the abstract value or values they instantiate or display (so, for example, an institution might be valuable in virtue of the liberty or equality that it engenders or embodies)" http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/value-incommensurable/.

According to Kuhn, epistemological different ideas are not compatible. The categories of incommensurability (p22). There are a number of types:

1. Brick-wall--stymied communication
2. Cosmic--differences in habituation
3. Semantic--clusters of meaning
4. Pragmatic--appeal to different values
5. Values and postmodernists --> pragmatic

Temporal proximity
diachronic--language as time /synchronic--language at one particular time (23).
3 ways of talking incommensurability etiology--what causes the communication breakdown.
severity--how substrantial are breakdown
population--who is affected between whom?
Among these are correlations that affect one more than the other, perhaps brick wall incommensurability (25). Two mutually impenetrable walls of communication. Total incommensurability (p27) is it trivial, banal, fictitious? lack of communication = incommensurability, e.g. humans-->dolphins
Cosmetic: seeing one thing in two different ways because of the angle.
Lingusitic relativity--language and thought are inextricably interelated (34) bottom (34).

Semantic incommensurability arises out of lingusitics complication variance in meaning (41) relative to age, region, or interest. It's OK to have meaning various. it only becomes an issue when meaning is impinged upon Locke, Pratt (perception through Whorf accounts for different (49).
Local incommensurability is confined to a small space (50)
Dialogic rhetoric (50) the role of audience (51) constrant shifting/refining of positions to accomodate listeners lexicon (53) "mastering the lexicon means acquiring the skill to recognize its appropriate application in various settings and to encounter the world in those terms (53).

Misaligned meanings
Pragmatic incommensurability concerns non-referential, non-lexical patterns of talk and practice that divide and sepate "pardigmatic disposition" (56).
Patterns of talk are wjat values argument are based on; what data informs those values

• not semantic
• not cosmic--no perceptua issues at stake
• not brickwall (61).

How meaning of incommensurability varies
Related uses of incommensurability (61)

• totalizing terminology (absolute, entire)
• perceptual (different, relative, degree)
• pragmatic term (practice, problem, values) 62

All incommensurability is value-driven
Value incommensurability (moral, political, aesthetic) 69 value pluralism and sophists (73) Socrates-->Phaedrus-->Soul constitutive role of rhetoric (73). Miller on rhetoric and diversity in communities (74).
Postmodernist incommensurability reinforces post-modernism and opacity between language and the concepts of differend (74).
Allows for differences because it rejects totalization, hates metanarratives associated with power and authority...distrusts political structures.
Meta incommensurability
Incommensurable among incommensurable (80). A realist and an instrumentalist can take opposite views of the same data and find it "commensurable in some instances and ...incommensurable in other ways (80).

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Rhetoric and
According to Khun, incommensurability can be termed in lexical notions in a manner amenable to scientific theory (80-81)
Fayerabend believed in the flexibility that allows scientific discourse to mutate; so rhetoric can ind a way around incommensurability (81). scientific theorie are incommensurable (82) that discovery has implications.
Words have the capacity to evolve with time, usgae (83) theories too with time, except there are not enough theories and incommensurability is an extreme form of ebbing (84).

Commensurable --> Measurement-->Precision--necessary for science
Undermining that quality is off-putting. ergo-different theories cannot be interchangeable; different theories=different language; distinct, unique
But theories are about terminologies not grammar (86) Whorf

Incommensurability does not obtain for trivial theories in the same domain (88). Meaning is contextual and argumentation relies on a selective approach to build context that affords one meaning while constraining another. so with context you ca bring 2 disparate theories together (89) so "two perspectives can be assimilated to the same overall framework (89). how can any two things be completely compatible? Incommensurability = misunderstanding/disagreement (92).

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Rhetoric and Remedy
Incommensurability invites non-scientists to examine how science does what it does given the disparities in themes, practices, meanings (97).
Significantly where thinkers do not perceive differences (97-98); what is rhetoric?
rhetoric offers a compromise (99) in that:

• it recognizes variance in meaning and sees theory ladenness in context and purpose
• it denies privilege to theory laden terms

Rhetoric strives for clarity, coherence, relevance
audience strives for charity, empathy, generosity, truth
Have a good attitude at all times; strive for consensual truth to achieve reciprocal suasion (101).

Persistence of incommensurability
exists where:

• Agonistic rhetoric--all or nothing stance (105)
• dialectical exchanges that drive apart (106). the remedy is in incommensurability itself (107)

Incommensurability does not rule out agreement and evaluation (117). Arguments function by phronesis (120).



Alan Gross--Kuhn's Incommensurability (179)
Gross focuses on lexicon--words ; on local semantics resulting from research not based on theory and how that affects mis/communication. Gross argues that Kuhn is using paradigm, etc metaphorically so he goes out of the way to point to ideas. To Gross, science is more about making worlds than about truths, which makes it rhetorical as it seeks to persuade in the face of meaninglessness.

Rhetoric and Incommensurability 196
Gross claims that you can have a position free of Kuhn's lense...Induction/deduction (192) Because history is purely inductive, you can arrive at incommensurability (as revealed by historical examples) because you see the lexicon in particular cases and recognize the miscommunication therein--the theories/terms were incompatible or deductively where by analogy you can argue incommensurability away.

does the existence of incommensurability put a stop to progress?
Gross says the issue of incommensurability is a problem of rhetoric and not of philosophy; certainly not of science.
Induction and lexicon are not incommensurable terms...

Why Rhetoric of Science?

Scientific knowledge guides the way the public is targeted and hinges on the formulation of public policy. The public then has a stake in the outcome of the myriad of experiments. The aim of scientific publication is to improve the public's understanding of science.

Based on my understanding that rhetoric of science is more than scientific discourse that rather it is science as it is communicated to and consumed by the public who then use that knowledge (not information) is used to advocate public policy.

Scientists stake their claims based not on proof but on likely outcomes ; on probable cause and effect. However, putting that information out their on its own is not enough to effect change. it is not until data becomes information and then knowledge that science can work.

The audience is often lay persons--the public, who deliberate about the world around them, not scientists. Audiences get scientific information through text, and visuals, which include graphs, tables, diagrams, photographs, paintings, and drawings . This information should not be obfuscated in any way, if it is to serve its purpose.

Scientific information comes to the public through newspaper and magazine articles. People who would not normally pick up a scientific journal
Contemporary communication has seen the need for visualization in designing content; this visualization is seen as adding value to content and making it worthwhile for readers.

Resources:
Kenneth Burk writes about symbols inducing action "symbolic means of influencing belief and behavior" (7). Randy Harris in Rhetoric and Incommensurability writes about "effective suasion" (8)

Rhetoric..."speculation into language as filtes, as tools, as medium, first of knowing and then of distributing hat is made known" (9).
Variables of argumentation (19)
Cateories of rhtorical proof (ethos, pathos, logos) strategies and techniques inherent within thse strands and how they are applied to particular cases (hueristics)
Strategies of inquiry--we call them. They include enthymeme, topoi
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Stasis is to stand (131)
From status as promulgated by Gorgias->aristotle-->Hermagoras
"the place between the direction of a controversy can take" (13). There are Four parts to Stasis: (fact--> definition-->quality-->jusridiction
Cicero in "De Inventione" indicate 4-ways stasis system-->has got 5 elements of rhetoric of rhetoric-->3 genres of oratory-->6 parts of oration. Cicero moves from casting rhetoric as persuasion to casting it as a "fluid instrument of understanding" (14) resulting in wisdom delivered through eloquence.

Aesthetics "concerns have always been integral to rhetoric" (15). Gorgias' influence is said to have resulted in figures, tropes, schemes ushering in an element of aesthetics and science.

Harris claims these have come to be seen as misleading, corrosive to truth and knowldge (15) while Spratt, Locke, Bacon resisting rhetoric largely due to mistrust meant that science steered clear of rhetoric--Plato/Ramus/Bacon.
The irony, though, is that in this phase, science communication was largely based on monologue--knower addressing the ignorant. Isocrates' claim that persuasion-->identification-->Burke (what's in it for me?)
Epsitemology--what counts for knowldge in science? According to Harris " a conequence of inerpretatioon, social construction, and rhtorical choice" (17).

Situating Science in Rhetoric

Definitions
Rhetoric as it comes to us from Ancient Greece is the study of persuasion.

With time, the term has gone beyond persuasion to mean "symbolic inducement"(Burke) or "arguments for adherence'" (Perelman), which all come down to studying how language works "to instill, dislodge, or modify beliefs--to suasion".

Science is the practice of making knowledge about the natural world. Rhetoric of Science then is an epistemological pursuit, which leads us to epistemology, knowledge, truth, and science. Our task then is to reconcile such esteemed terminology with words like persuasion, opinion, belief, and rhetoric.

How does rhetoric occur in science?

There is considerable work necessary to transform ideas from the scientific sphere to even the semi-popular pages of Scientific American or New Scientist.

Modern science distastes metaphors as is documented by Spratt, of the Royal Society. Spratt called for scientists to eschew all tropes including metaphor. 'Give me as many things in so many words, give me as many ideas in so many words.' He was against literary elaboration, which metaphor is wont to do. "Metaphor names things 'incorrectly', so in one sense it describes an incorrect referent. Spratt's desire to 'cleanse' the language of science arose from the perceived power of metaphors to inflame passion in one of the most internally poisonous periods of English domestic history. Yet Spratt's ideas about good language have a surprisingly modern resonance.

Rhetoric and Incommensurability

Why the Copenhagen method was shelved in favor of the Newtonian method.
Cooperation—works when scientists debate and critically think about issues they can come to a consensus. Rather than Newtonian schools working better than Copenhagen has to do with what the public does with science. P107 incommensurable does not mean not/working together, which makes inco…ty a good thing.
For Khun it's not just about sensation; there must be a physical aspect
How do apriori categories aid in the nature of science? (Kant: Prolegomena p.4-46). "Objective reality and necessary reality for everybody are equivalent.

Incommensurability is not in ideas, theories, language but in people. The remedy is in rhetoric (what doesn't get resolved are people). Is it physical incommensurability—an incommensurability of things, not of people?

Incommensurability is not in ideas, theories, language but in people. The remedy is in rhetoric (what doesn't get resolved are people). Is it physical incommensurability—an incommensurability of things, not of people?

If incommensurability….does exist and derails physics, what's the point of science?

Bacon's four idols and Harris' ways of incommensurability

Bacon Harris ways of incommensurability
Idols of the tribe Brick-wall (gibberish)
Idols of the cave Cosmic (differences in perception of the same phenomena
Idols of the marketplace-- Semantic (clusters of meaning being out of synch)
Idols of the theatre—philosophical systems Pragmatic (themes ad practices of contending parties are out of synch)


It's a problem of people rather than things or theories.

Fit for pint: A rhetorical analysis of peer reviews in scientific publications

technological change and scientific publication

continues to influence society, how those changes are reported, argued about, and decided upon within and without the scientific community will increase in importance.

rhetorical dynamics of science policy controversies as they play out in public disputes
over medical ethics.

What role, if any, do rhetorical interpretations play in the discourse of science? Can the acceptance of scientific ideas be exhaustively explained in terms of epistemic criteria alone, or is there always necessarily recourse to rhetorical topoi?