Popper-Kuhn debate

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This refers to the debate about what is sometimes known as 'the scientific method' which developed between Sir Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn about how science progresses. Popper presented a model of how science should proceed based upon setting out testable (and so falsifiable)- a method of conjecture and refutation which progressively rejected more and more alternatives to the true state of affairs. Popper strongly objected to Kuhn descriptions of science as of normal science as being puzzle solving taking place within established paradigms that were only occasionally overturned by revolutions. Kuhn argued that successive paradigms were strictly incommensurable (and biased the perceptions of those working within them so that those within different paradigms could not step outside them to judge things from some neutral ground). This was seen as a relativistic view of science, as taking strictly it mean there was no objective means of seeing a paradigm-shift as a move closer to scientific truth. Popper called the suggested hold of such paradigms over scientists as the myth of the framework.

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Author: Keith

Former school and college science teacher, teacher educator, research supervisor, and research methods lecturer. Emeritus Professor of Science Education at the University of Cambridge.