The Copernican Revolution: Planetary Astronomy in the Development of Western Thought

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According to science historian William Shea, the number of epicycles used by Copernicus "is not much less than that of Ptolemy". However, he argues that if the reason for preferring one astronomical system to another were to lie in the precision of the predictions, it would have been difficult to choose between the Ptolemaic and the Copernican systems. [13] The French Revolution (1789-1799) was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France. The revolution began with the storming of the Bastille prison on July 14, 1789, and ended with the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte as ruler of France in 1799. During this tumultuous period, French citizens revolted against their monarchy and aristocracy, demanding liberty, equality, and fraternity. In this post, we will explore the causes and consequences of the French Revolution! Garfield, Eugene (20 April 1987). "A Different Sort of Great Books List: The 50 Twentieth-Century Works Most Cited in the Arts & Humanities Citation Index, 1976–1983" (PDF). Essays of an Information Scientist (1987 Current Contents). 10 (16): 3–7. R]evolutions, which produce new divisions between fields in scientific development, are much like episodes of speciation in biological evolution. The biological parallel to revolutionary change is not mutation, as I thought for many years, but speciation. And the problems presented by speciation (e.g., the difficulty in identifying an episode of speciation until some time after it has occurred, and the impossibility even then, of dating the time of its occurrence) are very similar to those presented by revolutionary change and by the emergence and individuation of new scientific specialties. [27]

According to Field, it is impossible to decide which of these two affirmations is true. Prior to the theory of relativity, the term "mass" was referentially indeterminate. But this does not mean that the term "mass" did not have a different meaning than it now has. The problem is not one of meaning but of reference. The reference of such terms as mass is only partially determined: we do not really know how Newton intended his use of this term to be applied. As a consequence, neither of the two terms fully denotes (refers). It follows that it is improper to maintain that a term has changed its reference during a scientific revolution; it is more appropriate to describe terms such as "mass" as "having undergone a denotional refinement". [54] Naughton, John (18 August 2012). "Thomas Kuhn: the man who changed the way the world looked at science". The Guardian . Retrieved 24 August 2016. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is a book about the history of science by philosopher Thomas S. Kuhn. Its publication was a landmark event in the history, philosophy, and sociology of science. Kuhn challenged the then prevailing view of progress in science in which scientific progress was viewed as "development-by-accumulation" of accepted facts and theories. Kuhn argued for an episodic model in which periods of conceptual continuity where there is cumulative progress, which Kuhn referred to as periods of " normal science", were interrupted by periods of revolutionary science. The discovery of "anomalies" during revolutions in science leads to new paradigms. New paradigms then ask new questions of old data, move beyond the mere "puzzle-solving" [1] of the previous paradigm, change the rules of the game and the "map" directing new research. [2] Kordig, Carl R. (December 1973). "Discussion: Observational Invariance". Philosophy of Science. 40 (4): 558–569. doi: 10.1086/288565. JSTOR 186288. S2CID 224833690.

Horgan, John (May 1991). "Profile: Reluctant Revolutionary". Scientific American. 264 (5): 40–49. Bibcode: 1991SciAm.264e..40H. doi: 10.1038/scientificamerican0591-40. Archived from the original on September 20, 2011. Galileo's conjecture was merely that – a conjecture. So was Kepler's cosmology. But each conjecture increased the credibility of the other, and together, they changed the prevailing perceptions of the scientific community. Later, Newton showed that Kepler's three laws could all be derived from a single theory of motion and planetary motion. Newton solidified and unified the paradigm shift that Galileo and Kepler had initiated.

During the period of normal science, the failure of a result to conform to the paradigm is seen not as refuting the paradigm, but as the mistake of the researcher, contra Karl Popper's falsifiability criterion. As anomalous results build up, science reaches a crisis, at which point a new paradigm, which subsumes the old results along with the anomalous results into one framework, is accepted. This is termed revolutionary science. The difference between the normal and revolutionary science soon sparked the Kuhn-Popper debate. Bilton, Tony; etal. (2002). Introductory Sociology (4thed.). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. p.422. ISBN 978-0-333-94571-1. * In 1923, Chinese leader Sun Yat-sen began a policy of active cooperation with the Chinese Communists, who had grown in strength and number. Mao Tse-tung had supported both the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, but over the next few years, he adopted Leninist ideas and believed that appealing to the farming peasants was the key to establishing communism in Asia. He rose up through the ranks of the party as a delegate assemblyman and then executive to the Shanghai branch of the party. Death of Sun Yat-sen and the 'Long March' A number of the included essays question the existence of normal science. In his essay, Feyerabend suggests that Kuhn's conception of normal science fits organized crime as well as it does science. [50] Popper expresses distaste with the entire premise of Kuhn's book, writing, "the idea of turning for enlightenment concerning the aims of science, and its possible progress, to sociology or to psychology (or ... to the history of science) is surprising and disappointing." [51] Concept of paradigm [ edit ] Ruse, Michael (2005). Honderich, Ted (ed.). The Oxford Companion to Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-926479-7.The first edition of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions ended with a chapter titled "Progress through Revolutions", in which Kuhn spelled out his views on the nature of scientific progress. Since he considered problem solving (or "puzzle solving") [1] to be a central element of science, Kuhn saw that for a new candidate paradigm to be accepted by a scientific community, McFedries, Paul (7 May 2001). The Complete Idiot's Guide to a Smart Vocabulary ((1st ed.) Alphaed.). Penguin. pp.142–143. ISBN 978-0-02-863997-0. The Ptolemaic approach of using cycles and epicycles was becoming strained: there seemed to be no end to the mushrooming growth in complexity required to account for the observable phenomena. Johannes Kepler was the first person to abandon the tools of the Ptolemaic paradigm. He started to explore the possibility that the planet Mars might have an elliptical orbit rather than a circular one. Clearly, the angular velocity could not be constant, but it proved very difficult to find the formula describing the rate of change of the planet's angular velocity. After many years of calculations, Kepler arrived at what we now know as the law of equal areas.

Burman, J. T. (2007). "Piaget No 'Remedy' for Kuhn, But the Two Should be Read Together: Comment on Tsou's 'Piaget vs. Kuhn on Scientific Progress' ". Theory & Psychology. 17 (5): 721–732. doi: 10.1177/0959354307079306. S2CID 145497321. Kuhn states that the probabilistic tools used by verificationists are inherently inadequate for the task of deciding between conflicting theories, since they belong to the very paradigms they seek to compare. Similarly, observations that are intended to falsify a statement will fall under one of the paradigms they are supposed to help compare, and will therefore also be inadequate for the task. According to Kuhn, the concept of falsifiability is unhelpful for understanding why and how science has developed as it has. In the practice of science, scientists will only consider the possibility that a theory has been falsified if an alternative theory is available that they judge credible. If there is not, scientists will continue to adhere to the established conceptual framework. If a paradigm shift has occurred, the textbooks will be rewritten to state that the previous theory has been falsified. Such incommensurability exists not just before and after a paradigm shift, but in the periods in between conflicting paradigms. It is simply not possible, according to Kuhn, to construct an impartial language that can be used to perform a neutral comparison between conflicting paradigms, because the very terms used are integral to the respective paradigms, and therefore have different connotations in each paradigm. The advocates of mutually exclusive paradigms are in a difficult position: "Though each may hope to convert the other to his way of seeing science and its problems, neither may hope to prove his case. The competition between paradigms is not the sort of battle that can be resolved by proofs." [22] Scientists subscribing to different paradigms end up talking past one another.

As a result of the Great Leap Forward's failure, in 1962 Mao Tse-tung was quietly pushed to the sidelines and his rivals took control of the country. For the first time in 25 years, Mao was not a central figure in leadership. While he waited for his time to return, an ardent supporter, Lin Biao, compiled some of Mao's writings into a handbook entitled Quotations from Chairman Mao. Known as the "Little Red Book," copies were made available to all Chinese. Cultural Revolution Irzik, Gürol; Grünberg, Teo (June 1, 1998). "Whorfian variations on Kantian themes: Kuhn's linguistic turn". Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A. 29 (2): 207–221. Bibcode: 1998SHPSA..29..207I. doi: 10.1016/S0039-3681(98)00003-X. ISSN 0039-3681. Kaiser, David (2012). "In retrospect: the structure of scientific revolutions". Nature. 484 (7393): 164–166. Bibcode: 2012Natur.484..164K. doi: 10.1038/484164a. Gattei, Stefano (2008). Thomas Kuhn's 'Linguistic Turn' and the Legacy of Logical Empiricism: Incommensurability, Rationality and the Search for Truth (1ed.). London: Routledge. p.292. doi: 10.4324/9781315236124. ISBN 9781315236124. In regard to experimentation and collection of data with a view toward solving problems through the commitment to a paradigm, Kuhn states: