Scientific Theories: An Introduction
Science, as told, is uncertain. Moreover given the history of science, there is every reason for science to be unsure. No scientific theory survives revision for long, and many are ultimately displaced by theories that categorically oppose their predecessors. Scientific revolutions are common however, painful, and real. New theories frequently knock over old ones, and no scientific theory is ever the final word.
Nevertheless if science is uncertain, scientists are not. As philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn rightly noted, it takes a revolution to change scientific theories specifically since scientists do not hold their theories uncertainly. Therefore, in his Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Kuhn quotes with support Max Planck, who wrote that a new scientific truth does not succeed by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, except somewhat its opponents finally die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.
No scientist with a career devoted in a scientific theory is going to abandon it easily. The only way to make progress with a theory is to be fully invested in it. Scientific theories are frameworks for solving problems. Scientists risk their careers and jobs working on theories they hope will solve interesting problems. Therefore, scientists need to be persuaded that their theories provide not only fundamental and deep insights, nevertheless also opportunities of research satisfactorily fruitful to span an whole scientific career.
By itself a scientist's lack of apprehension poses no danger to science. It only becomes a danger when it turns to intransigence. Usually, a scientist's lack of apprehension toward a scientific theory basically means that the scientist is convinced the theory is significantly correct. Scientists are fully entitled to such beliefs. In contrast, scientists who hold their theories rigidly go on to assert that their theories cannot........
