Re: seti@home and scientists

phoenix@ugcs.caltech.edu
8 Jul 1999 20:39:57 -0000

> At 02:11 PM 7/8/99 , Daniel J. Boone wrote:
>
> > "[According to Kuhn] The old
> > scientists who became established within the dominant paradigm
> > have to die off first: they will virtually never accept the new
> > paradigm. Only the younger generation of scientists, who don't
> > have the emotional attachment to the old paradigm will be willing
> > to change their minds. As physicist Max Planck once said,
> > 'Science progresses funeral by funeral.'"

Einstein's famous for being recalcitrant, but how many other older physicists did accept quantum? Certainly many older geologists did a 180 on continental drift when seafloor magnetic surveys came in, revealing the stripes from spreading.

I suspect this "virtually never" claim.

-xx- Damien X-)