Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
stages between the retina and the central brain areas, on normal
and abnormal processing, genetic problems and visual processing in
different species. Thus, the number of subjects appears to increase
with a continuing proliferation of scientific specialties, giving the
impression that the scientific progress is diverging, not converging.
Certainly, there is, at present, no sign that vision research will settle
on a common paradigm.
Yet, the best illustration of the failure of Kuhn's model to
provide an adequate account of the development of science, in
general, is the paradigm shift from the presumptions of the Ancient
Greeks (that the crystalline lens was the actual sense organ and
that the information about the outer world was obtained by rays
that emanated
from
the eye
towards
the object) to the conceptions
of Kepler and Newton that the lens was just an optical focusing
device and that light moved in the opposite direction. Obviously,
this change in view is not merely a 'conversion' or a 'different
language developed in a different world', but a change from false
presumptions to assumptions that today are generally considered
as facts.
As seen, Kuhn's model, like Popper's, gives no room for such
a progressive change, also witnessed by the change in the status of
Young's trichromatic theory.
It is apparent that the models of Popper and Kuhn have left
out some important factors involved in the development of scientific
theories. Perhaps the most important weakness of the models is that
they do not give any adequate account of how
new
theories arrive. In
the development of the duplicity theory explorations and unexpected
observations not based on attempts to falsify existing theories (Popper)
or triggered by obvious anomalies (Kuhn) have played a crucial role.
The question has often been raised as to whether scientific
progress is mainly a rational process as assumed by Popper or an
irrational process as assumed by Kuhn. The development of the
duplicity theory obviously favours the assumption of a rational
process. Such a rational attitude is well illustrated in Helmholtz
