Actually Kuhn distinguishes between the progress that ordinary science makes and that of revolutuonary science that changes fundamental assumptions. It's the latter that he believes causes quarrels whilst the former is generally building upon on principles already accepted by consensus. The arguments that ensue when cherished foundational principles are under attack is easily understandable. After all, people have already invested a great deal of time and trouble establishing them and investigating their realm of validity. To upturn them is to upturn a great deal. Hence argument ensues ...

... because a new consensus has to be forged and this cannot be done without critique, argument and counter-argument. It's when science becomes politics but a politics restricted to science (and so to many people, not politics at all). Further, I'd say there is a great difference between the pressure that science puts on society than that of other forms. Climate change is one of the greatest challenges that humanity has faced and to suggest that this form of truth-seeking power is akin to the self-serving power of say Facebook in pursuit of profit is just laughable.

@MoziburUllah: Are you not arguing against Focault here? According to Focault there seems to be no truth to seek, only power-knowledge.

@Ted Wrigley: Regarding Thomas Kuhn. I can understand that there is some politics involved in science as well. Humans are after all not completely rational or altruistic. But do you not think that in the long run science moves forward towards a better understanding?

@Andy: No, I'm not. Your notion of 'there is no truth to seek only power-knowledge' is a misreading of Foucault and smacks of the worst excesses of post-modernism. Foucault isn't even denying the efficacy of power. It's to what ends that this power is pursued in that he critiques. This is why I said above that Foucault is interested in modern forms of tyranny.

@MoziburUllah: I agree with your first comment, but the second smacks of idealism. Facebook is merely a different form of power-knowledge than science, not an inferior one. It replaces empirical validation with emotional validation, which is fine within its proper context. And note that your comments here aren't a critique of what I said, they reinforce it. Basically you've argued that CC is unlike FB because CC has empirical evidence that shows human impact, with consequences devastating to humanity, implying people should feel shame for not seeing those consequences. QED

@Andy: I have no problem with the idea of science 'advancing', but we have to consider 'what it is' that's advancing. 'Understanding' is kind of a weaselly word, since we don't really 'understand' what 'understanding' is. I think it's better to say that scientists develop more precise, accurate, and rigorously functional models of observable phenomena. Science makes models that can be used better, and references to that intrinsic functionality brings us right back to F's power-knowledge paradigm.

@Ted Wrigley: I disagree with you here. You're engaging with the worst forms of post-modernism here. There is a category difference between Facebook and that of Science. Foucault would not be interested in thinking of Facebook as engaging in 'emotional validation'. This is how it describes itself to others. That is relationship building. But like I've already said above, after the testimony of Frances Haugen to both Congress and Parliament this description hides the emotional manipulation and polarisation that Facebook engages in to drive up traffic to their site in order to build ...

@Ted Wrigley: ... up profits. It's also implicated in fake news traffic and breaking the safeguards built into democracy. Facebook know all this. Facebook is not in the market for the public good. Scientists as well as activists advocating policy change in the context of climate change are acting in the public interest. Its the duty of governments to look after their people. The duty is not on the individual per se. Hence it makrs no sense to say 'people should feel shame'. Its governments that are failing to act decisively enough. And much of this reluctance is due to ...

@Ted Wrigley: ... not wanting to take on large and powerful corporations in the business of fossil fuels. Facebook is similar, except instead of polluting the earth and atmosphere, it is polluting the public sphere.

@MoziburUllah: But people DO feel shame. In the country I live we have flight shame, diesel shame, boat shame and meat shame so far. And some people seem to find great joy in imposing this shame on others. Furthermore these people often seem to belong to the political and economical elite.

@Andy: Shame is a human emotion so it's not suprising that people feel it and sometimes when they shouldn't - but they do for entirely understandable reasons. The point I'm making is that it is not the responsibility of the electorate to feel that they are in the wrong when not enough changes. It's the responsibility of the representatives. It's why they were elected. Can you say why corporate executives shouldn't be hung, drawn and quartered for their role in the massive opiod crisis in the US? I imagine they found great joy when hundreds of millions rolled into their bank accounts ...

@Andy: ... even though they were engaging in medical malpractise. Do you think that this was an abomination or should we applaud them for their enterpreneurial cleverness?

@MoziburUllah: I take it that you are dissatisfied with capitalism. Fair enough. So postmodernism is a tool by which you can take down capitalism? What happens next? There will be new power structures and these will also need to be deconstructed. If we keep this up we can deconstruct ourselves right back into caves.

@Andy: You've misunderstood me. I wasn't advocating the post-modernist view - you were - because you were saying that "according to Foucault there seems to be no truth to seek, only power-knowledge". This is the post-modernist outlook - and it's inimical to liberal denocracies.

@MoziburUllah If you call what I'm saying 'post-modernism', then you have some deep misconceptions about modern critical theory that I do not know how to address.

@MoziburUllah: At any rate, no one so far has been talking about 'the public good', and introducing that concept instantly draws the conversation into the realm of politics and social power. From a (pure) scientific perspective, the capacity of the human race to extinguish itself is merely a fact; it's neither good nor bad, it simply is. Asserting it as 'bad' (i.e., not in the public good) is nothing except an effort to exert moral power and induce shame for 'bad' acts that worsen the condition.

@Ted Wrigley: To say that Facebook is "merely a different form of knowledge acquisition than science - neither better nor worse" is to misunderstand the nature of truth and knowledge. Post-modernism in its worst excesses delights in confusingvsimple matters like this and thats why I described your statement as such. Foucault implicitly is talking about the public good when he is talking about inimical forms of power dressed up in the disinterested search for knowledge. The capacity for the human race to extinguish itself has only become apparent in the last century. Before then, it was ...

@Ted Wrigley: ... never possible and to say this is neither 'good nor bad' is an espousal of nihilistic ethics that is not justifiable by any of the major sysyems of ethics and law. That you seem to think so says a great deal about your own ethics and lack of humanity. Every moral code says that murder is a moral wrong, yet you casually say that the ability of the human race to destroy itself is beyond that category is simply lacking in any moral sense. To describe it as 'shaming' just shows how little understanding of ethics you have. Are you going to tell me that just because certain ...

@Ted Wrigley: ... people engage in paedophilia we should regard that as a fact without engaging in the discussion of its moral right and wrong as the best policy? That we shouldn't 'shame' pedo's?? Or worse, even throw them into prison??? I mean, lets not hurt the feelings of those guys. I mean, shame o us, ehat were we thinking about???? Your catch-all notion of 'shaming' shows no understanding of the psychology of ethics or ethics tout court.

@MoziburUllah: Do please stay civil. Foucault was a postmodernist, a foundational one. He didn't deny the reality of truth, but he did deny that truth can be separated from power:

"Truth is a thing of this world: it is produced only by virtue of multiple forms of constraint. And it induces regular effects of power.

Each society has its regime of truth, its “general politics” of truth: that is, the types of discourse which it accepts and makes function as true; the mechanisms and instances which enable one to distinguish true and false statements, the means by which each is sanctioned; the techniques and procedures accorded value in the acquisition of truth; the status of those who are charged with saying what counts as true" - Foucault, in Rabinow 1991

And

"We must cease once and for all to describe the effects of power in negative terms: it ‘excludes’, it ‘represses’, it ‘censors’, it ‘abstracts’, it ‘masks’, it ‘conceals’. In fact power produces; it produces reality; it produces domains of objects and rituals of truth. The individual and the knowledge that may be gained of him belong to this production" - Discipline & Punish

Our task here is not to advance or dispute our own views, but to establish Foucault's. Let's do that.