The problem with the development of science is our need to draw straight lines. We want to believe that science is the incremental, linear, progressive, growth of knowledge in society. We know it isn’t true but we do so all the same.
In 1935 Ludwik Fleck wrote on the development of science (Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact). According to him one of the major stumbling blocks in scientific development was the ruling ideas (thought styles) which have been established within the totality of scientific thought (thought collective). The thought collective was made up of individual members but was greater than the sum of individuals since the ideas remained strong even if members left the collective.
These ideas dove-tail very nicely into Thomas Kuhnâ??s ideas (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions) that science passes through revolutions (paradigm shifts) were first new ideas are resisted until the normative thought style no longer fits the understanding of the results being brought forward by scientists.
Its easy to giggle at the stupidity of past knowledge – sometimes my students have a hard time understanding how people in the past could have been so ignorant (as opposed to our enlightened state). Sometimes I try to compare this scientific development to individual development and ask them to think about the last time they had a paradigm shift of their own.
Two doctoral thesis’ on/connected to Fleck
One in archeology by David Loeffler â??Contested Landscapes/Contested Heritageâ?? from 2005 (uses Fleck’s ideas) and one in philosophy by Bengt Liliequist â??Ludwik Flecks jämförande kunskapsteoriâ?? (in Swedish).