The World on Paper

"[Individuals who break through by inventing a new paradigm are] almost always...either very young or very new to the field whose paradigm they change...These are the [men and women] who, being little committed to prior practice to the traditional rules of normal science, are particularly likely to see that those rules no longer define a playable game and to conceive another set that can replace them." - Thomas S Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolution (1962)

Monday, April 17, 2006

Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (1963)

"The way in which knowledge progresses, and especially our scientific knowledge, is by unjustified (and unjustfiable) anticipations, by guesses, by tentative solutions to our problems, by conjectures. These conjectures are controlled by criticism; that is, by attempted refutations, which include severely critical tests."

"As we learn from our mistakes our knowledge grows, even though we may never know - that is, know for certain."

- Karl Raimund Popper (1902-1994),
from the Preface, First Edition 1963

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