HB: In responding to the article, you did say, “Now, having had another 20 years, there may be parts of the disruption theory that we should look at again.” Have you modified the theory over time?
CC: Absolutely. Thomas Kuhn said that a theory improves when you can find something that it can't explain. He called them anomalies. So we ask the students, every class, to come prepared to show what the theory can't explain. And we've learned enormous amounts from that.
http://www.businessinsider.com/clay-christensen-defends-disruption-theory-2014-10
Now Kuhn I've read! More than once. And Kuhn did not say that!
...Une momento por favor as I drag myself off the bed and go get my copy of Structure of Scientific Revolutions off my bookshelf....
Hola! Okay, Kuhn said the history of science was not linear or cumulative, that science did not proceed by incremental steps until voila! string theory, scientific history was not evolutionary it was revolutionary. Kuhn said "normal" science was practiced within an accepted theoretical "paradigm;" that it happened historically that "anomalies" occurred in the practice of normal science, problems that did not appear to be solvable within the paradigm. Scientists being human beings, reacted to these anomalies in one of three ways: (1) "Eh, not so important." (2) Important and "I solved it!" (3) Important and "Hey Charlie, I can't solve this thing, would you take a look at it?"
Kuhn said when #3 occurs and nobody can solve the problem the paradigm goes into "crisis," an intense period of anything-but-normal work by scientists until voila! Newton. Christensen's disruption theory is not a Kuhnian crisis. Christensen would have companies deliberately create disruption. Kuhn never said an existing paradigm "improves when you can find something that it can't explain," Kuhn said the opposite of what Professor Christensen says Kuhn said:
"Einstein's theory can be accepted only with the recognition that Newton's was wrong." (Structure, 98).
Kuhn said a paradigm wasn't improved by anomalies, Kuhn said if something persisted in being unexplained, the paradigm was overthrown in a revolution!
"...the transition from Newtonian to Einsteinian mechanics illustrates with particular clarity the scientific revolution as a displacement of the conceptual network through which scientists view the world." (102)
There is, Thomas Kuhn said with the phrase that always will be attached his name a whole "paradigm shift" that occurs when an anomaly produces crisis, a new science not an "improved" one:
"...paradigms differ in more than substance, for they are directed not only to nature but also back upon the science that produced them...As a result, the reception of a new paradigm often necessitates a redefinition of the corresponding science...The normal-scientific tradition that emerges from a scientific revolution is not only incompatible but often actually incommensurable with that which has gone before."
Professor Christensen has a bone in his brain; he completely misstates Kuhn.
CC: Absolutely. Thomas Kuhn said that a theory improves when you can find something that it can't explain. He called them anomalies. So we ask the students, every class, to come prepared to show what the theory can't explain. And we've learned enormous amounts from that.
http://www.businessinsider.com/clay-christensen-defends-disruption-theory-2014-10
Now Kuhn I've read! More than once. And Kuhn did not say that!
...Une momento por favor as I drag myself off the bed and go get my copy of Structure of Scientific Revolutions off my bookshelf....
Hola! Okay, Kuhn said the history of science was not linear or cumulative, that science did not proceed by incremental steps until voila! string theory, scientific history was not evolutionary it was revolutionary. Kuhn said "normal" science was practiced within an accepted theoretical "paradigm;" that it happened historically that "anomalies" occurred in the practice of normal science, problems that did not appear to be solvable within the paradigm. Scientists being human beings, reacted to these anomalies in one of three ways: (1) "Eh, not so important." (2) Important and "I solved it!" (3) Important and "Hey Charlie, I can't solve this thing, would you take a look at it?"
Kuhn said when #3 occurs and nobody can solve the problem the paradigm goes into "crisis," an intense period of anything-but-normal work by scientists until voila! Newton. Christensen's disruption theory is not a Kuhnian crisis. Christensen would have companies deliberately create disruption. Kuhn never said an existing paradigm "improves when you can find something that it can't explain," Kuhn said the opposite of what Professor Christensen says Kuhn said:
"Einstein's theory can be accepted only with the recognition that Newton's was wrong." (Structure, 98).
Kuhn said a paradigm wasn't improved by anomalies, Kuhn said if something persisted in being unexplained, the paradigm was overthrown in a revolution!
"...the transition from Newtonian to Einsteinian mechanics illustrates with particular clarity the scientific revolution as a displacement of the conceptual network through which scientists view the world." (102)
There is, Thomas Kuhn said with the phrase that always will be attached his name a whole "paradigm shift" that occurs when an anomaly produces crisis, a new science not an "improved" one:
"...paradigms differ in more than substance, for they are directed not only to nature but also back upon the science that produced them...As a result, the reception of a new paradigm often necessitates a redefinition of the corresponding science...The normal-scientific tradition that emerges from a scientific revolution is not only incompatible but often actually incommensurable with that which has gone before."
Professor Christensen has a bone in his brain; he completely misstates Kuhn.
