It's true, as John K. said, that very few people ever even look at the
foundations, much less question them. My father really never intended to do
so; he planned to apply the "tools on the shelf" in perhaps a more creative
manner, and thought that would generate his answers for him. But when he was
compelled (by the inability of the tools to do the job, no matter how those
tools were applied) to look at how the tools came to be in the first place,
he began the process of re-examining the foundations and it was astonishing
what he found in doing so.
That was what generated the complaint that has become somewhat famous: "The
trouble with YOU, Rosen, is you're always trying to answer questions nobody
wants to ask!" That referred to the foundational questions he was asking
("Why mechanism?", "Why reductionism?", "Why based on particulate matter?",
"Why is final cause forbidden?" etc).
Ultimately, he realized that it is absolutely essential to question the
foundations. Assumptions are dangerous. Yet science (and religion and
government and industry and....) is built on them. He used to jokingly quote
a line from some movie that went; "When we ASSUME, we make an ASS out of U
and Me..."
Judith
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Kineman" <***>
To: <***>
Sent: Sunday, September 05, 2004 1:33 AM
Subject: Re: [ROSEN] Paradigm shifts through the history of science
> Tim,
>
> Isn't it amazing, though, how few people understand what paradigms are,
> what they are based on, and how the change? So much of science education
> takes place inside a paradigm, there is scant attention given to where it
> came from in the first place. Only a very few people I work with
understand
> ideas like paradigms and world views.
>
> John
>