Per Kuhn's "puzzle solving" demarcation criteria, don't Creationism and Lysenkoism simply fall into the category of "normal science"?

Question

Kuhn classfies science into two phases: periods of revolutionary science, where theories themselves are being challenged (for example when Newtonian mechanics was being supplanted by quantum mechanics), and a period of normal science, where researches accept a given theory and focus on confirming and working on its details (For example physicists subsequently fleshing out the details and consequences of QM).

From the SEP article on demarcation:

Kuhn criticized Popper for characterizing “the entire scientific enterprise in terms that apply only to its occasional revolutionary parts” (Kuhn 1974, 802). Popper's focus on falsifications of theories led to a concentration on the rather rare instances when a whole theory is at stake. According to Kuhn, the way in which science works on such occasions cannot be used to characterize the entire scientific enterprise. Instead it is in “normal science”, the science that takes place between the unusual moments of scientific revolutions, that we find the characteristics by which science can be distinguished from other enterprises (Kuhn 1974, 801).

In normal science, the scientist's activity consists in solving puzzles rather than testing fundamental theories. In puzzle-solving, current theory is accepted, and the puzzle is indeed defined in its terms. In Kuhn's view, “it is normal science, in which Sir Karl's sort of testing does not occur, rather than extraordinary science which most nearly distinguishes science from other enterprises”, and therefore a demarcation criterion must refer to the workings of normal science (Kuhn 1974, 802). Kuhn's own demarcation criterion is the capability of puzzle-solving that he sees as an essential characteristic of normal science.

But then per Kuhn's "puzzle solving" criteria, aren't Creationism and Lysenkoism just science as it proceeds in the normal phase? In both cases, a theory has already been accepted ("Lamarckan heritability", and "that world was intelligently designed"), and its practitioners were simply trying to solve the puzzle of how to fit the data to the theory.

My questions:

1. How would Kuhn's approach avoid classifying Creationism and Lysenkoism as normal science?
2. Shouldn't the intent of a research program count for whether it is classified as a science or not? In both Creationism and Lysenkoism's case, the program starts out with a none scientific agenda, and then tries to fit it with scientific results. It seems to me that this intention/agenda is what marks out the two as pseudo-scientific, more than anything else (that's not their only problem, but it is their biggest).

Answer 1

I think Kuhn is just wrong about the nature of daily scientific progress. Just because you're not invalidating the germ theory of disease each time you do an experiment in lab, it doesn't follow that basic progress isn't essentially falsificationist (or castable as falsificationist) most of the time. For instance, most findings are backed up with statistics, and most statistical tests have a "null hypothesis" which you're ruling out, and that ruling out is essentially probabilistically falsifying the simpler hypothesis that nothing's going on. But, happily, we needn't settle that discussion (even if it does make it easier) to judge the examples you gave.

If we're to take Kuhn's position seriously (or perhaps an overly-strong caricature of his position), then indeed, one can do puzzle-solving from within the framework of Creationism or Lysenkoism. However, both of these are (and were when they were proposed) deeply in "crisis" mode, where data is explained poorly, and further inquiry only deepens rather than resolves the problems.

In practice, in both cases, what ended up happening is that "researchers" did not follow the normal process of science so that they could avoid having to face the crisis. And in any case, the two were not bringing theory and observation into closer agreement in any meaningful way (mostly the opposite--new observations would raise further troubling discrepancies), which Kuhn also requires for normal science.

So both fail as normal science on one count--agreement between observation and theory is not, on the whole, increasing; and as science on a second count--crisis has been reached and is long overdue, but revolution has not occurred.

Answer 2

If it were accepted, Creationism -- which involves at least a radical revision of geologic timescales and a correspondingly large change in biology -- would be a paradigm shift in the sciences; all of the sciences. Even what would seem to be a more modest idea, like irreducible complexity, would still require radical reconsideration of large chunks of biology, chemistry and physics. Thus, taken as a whole, these efforts do not lie within "normal science".

This question points out one of the issues with the demarcation of science, radical new ideas have to come from somewhere and seem to require some non-rigorous intuitive spark. If you stick to a strict science/non-science split, you run into a dilemma: if you include the non-rigorous speculative phase under the scientific umbrella, you open the door to many wacky ideas, if you do not, you seem to be missing one of the interesting key features of the scientific endeavour: generating new ideas. One way out of this is to be more nuanced: you can differentiate established science (ideas well founded on observations) from speculative science (ideas that go much further away from what is already established) from discredited science (ideas that were once accepted to some degree, and now abandoned) from psuedoscience (ideas that are scientifically discredited, yet still held onto for some reason).

As pointed out in Cort Ammon's answer, on a smaller scale there may be individuals or groups who believe in Creationism, yet do puzzle solving; Cort's example of analyzing radioisotope (and other) dating methods spot on here. Note that for this to be carried out, the researchers have to analyze the results as per currently accepted techniques in order to show the discrepancies with the other researched work, i.e. operate within the current paradigm, even if their overall goal is to change that paradigm.

The issue is not the existence of an agenda per se, historians of science can point to any number of respected scientists who had an ideological or political agenda and argue that that affected their valid scientific work. However, there are gradations here too. Especially in the more speculative areas, without some commitment that their pet theory is likely to be true, most scientists wouldn't be motivated to continue their work. Note the "likely to be true", this differentiates it from the damaging absolutist ideological commitments that Creationists et al. make. It's not so much about what the motivation is -- drug companies do interesting science in order to make more money -- it's about the degree to which those motivations interfere with the science -- so there is a publication bias towards positive effects-- that is a problem.

---

I've responded to this question as though the creationists (et al.) were doing responsible scientific work. The Dover case has provided evidence that at least some practitioners in that camp intentionally ignored good scientific practices in order to produce what are, in effect, political propaganda to support their religious stance. Even if some practitioners are making good faith efforts to understand the world (scientifically), almost all of the time the quality of the work is dubious. For example, the mathematical modelling used to justify "irreducible complexity" was quickly shown to contain errors, and each of the the supposed biochemical examples of the same were shown to have less complex analogs in other species; the kinds of errors that erase a researcher's credibility. At some point, poor enough work, or continuing to pursue an idea despite disconfirming evidence, can be considered "not science"

Answer 3

No. Normal science presumes you are advancing or refining a paradigm that is the accepted basis of your current discipline, or is at least one among a set they would consider adopting.

Just having a different paradigm from the majority of your science, by choice, is doing revolutionary science and pretending it is not revolutionary.

It is like an institution setting up a separate system of courts unconnected to the State and Federal systems in the middle of the United States, out of objection to some Supreme Court ruling. Their process may be the same, but what they are dispensing simply isn't law. Acting as if it is law is an act of revolution undermining the sovereignty of the jurisdiction surrounding it.

Answer 4

Yes and no.

Creationism per se cannot be construed as a science, normal or otherwise. The causal entity defined as an "intelligence" exceeding "human intelligence" simply cannot be falsified, experimentally demonstrated, or even adequately defined by its subsidiary "human intelligence" or the necessary self-limitations of science. The ID hypothesis can be endlessly pursued as "puzzle-solving," of course, as in Thomism. It may even be true. But I do not see that it can ever conform to what is meant by a "scientific" paradigm, even in the most relativistic interpretation of Kuhn.

In this, I appear to disagree with both Cort Ammon and Rex Kerr, who are venturing, I believe, far outside the Kuhnian framework.

Lysenkoism, on the other hand, could easily be "normal science." Even political intrusion and falsified evidence might have been overcome by some continual, Quinean revision of the subsidiary hypotheses. Presumably, it would have encountered a Kuhnian crisis sufficient to dismantle its ideological embankments. But in fact it never did become a "normal science" because an alternate, crisis-inducing paradigm appeared not in its "normal" development, but as a superior, contemporary crisis and challenge.

But as ideologically driven science, corrupted science, politicized science, or "bad" science, Lysenkoism is not so different from many short-lived episodes in the history of science generally, some of them perhaps widely accepted today. One can only... wait and see. Indeed, it would not be terribly surprising to see some of today's Lemarckian or teleological heresies return to favor in the near future. Teleology of a sort is not necessarily ruled out by scientific paradigms, but a "superior intelligence" as causal entity is, whether God or Stalin.

Answer 5

Declaring Creationism to be a science is only a problem if you fundamentally believe it needs to be a problem. If the word "science" bestows automatic rights to an idea, it could cause issues. For instance, if the mere fact that it is scientific makes it canon, you could be validly concerned with this issue.

Honestly, I have read plenty of scientific literature defending Creationism. You can do it. The issue arises when that literature then tries to claim it is part of the larger body of secular science, which it is not. It starts from a different set of presumptions, so secular science simply doesn't accept it (it doesn't help that secular science arrives at results that contradict Creationism). It's like two different entities developing their own opinions with the same approach.

Personally, I find no problems with this. If a group of people believe they can have a monopoly on science, they should find themselves mistaken, for the same reason one should find themselves mistaken if they try to claim a monopoly on the ability to do arithmetic.

Using Kuhn's approach, secular science's position for countering Creationism would be to wait for the cycle to continue. Eventually the Creationist scientists will enter a revolution phase to deal with new data (there's questions as to whether the data is already there, and they're ignoring it, but that's another debate)*. They will have to come up with new, more complicated theories to make sense of the data. Eventually, they may find that this revolution phase cuts the wind from their sails, and Creationism peters out as the theory grows too unwieldy to digest this new evidence. Or, alternatively, they may find something the secular community never considered, in which case, their theory gains more credit, and secular science has to struggle to catch up. In either case, science itself wins.

* I am constantly fascinated by the debates regarding the accuracies of dating methods. If nothing else, Creationism has kept science honest about its abilities in dating!