In your post to Cliff you claimed two things that I would like to
take exception to:
1. Your claim that "working scientists" regard the word "paradigm"
to refer to nothing more than a hypothesis or model.
This does not match my experience, and I invite other "working scientists"
to respond with theirs. In all of my professional training, up through
and including the Ph. D., I do not remember hearing the word "paradigm"
used even once with regard to scientific work. The words "model", "theory",
and "hypothesis", often modified by the adjectives "heuristic" or
phenomenological", are ubiquitous in at least the physical sciences. But
paradigm? Not in my experience.
Even today, I think that the term is used nearly exclusively by philosophers
of science or working scientists who have been exposed to the writings of
such philosophers. The phrase "paradigm shift" did not necessarily originate
with Kuhn, but was certainly popularized by him. Still today, though, I
encounter many research scientists whose views of science are largely Baconian
and who have never been exposed to some of the critiques and correctives of
Kuhn and others. I suspect that academics in the humanities and social
sciences speak more frequently of "paradigms" than those in the natural
sciences.
2. Your attempt to characterize James Watson as a "(bio)chemist". Chapter
three of his book "The Double Helix" makes it very clear that as a graduate
student and postdoc he was very reluctant to learn any chemistry at all,
and as a matter of fact, when he was awarded a postdoc fellowship for the
express purpose of learning biochemistry, he avoided it mightily and actually
got involved in phage research similar to what he had done for his Ph.D.
I believe that a fair reading of his book shows that he only began to take an
interest in biochemistry when he got excited about solving the structure of
DNA. Up to that time he had little, if any, formal training in chemistry...
by his own admission. Watson also explained that he acquired this
aversion to chemistry from his advisor, Savador Luria.
So I think your assertion:
===================================================
The only examples that exist are those of people who
were already experts in the field in which they made their breakthrough,
through independent study and research, but who were unacknowledged by the
recognized experts in that field.
===============================================
is clearly incorrect in at least the case of Watson. Note the word
"already" in the statement.
Stan Zygmunt
Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
Valparaiso University