Classifying Scientific Controversies

Abstract

Abstract Despite its importance, the study of scientific controversies has not developed as much as the study of other aspects of science. This is, I believe, is one more of the aftereffects of Thomas Kuhn’s work. In one sense, Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) did, of course, place some notion of scientific controversy at the center of attention. But, in another sense, most of the relevant issues were rarely pinpointed and discussed in their own right. Instead, they tended to remain unclear and indistinct, covered under the all-embracing—or so it appeared at the time—paradigm change. Moreover, much of post-Kuhnian philosophy of science forced itself to respond to what it considered Kuhn’s overall challenge to rationality, rather than occupy itself with the finer details of what it is for scientists to disagree with one another and to fight out such disagreements. This, then, implies that to study scientific controversies we have to start from the beginning. Traditionally, to attempt classification forms precisely such a beginning.