🚀 go-pugleaf

Jeff Lanfield wrote:
> 
> I am writing a paper on how new ideas gain acceptance in science.

Reproducible empirical demonstration by despised and undeserving
discoverers.  

Kary Mullis won a 1993 Nobel Prize subsequent to a boring
late-night drive down Highway 128 to Anderson Valley (Mendocino
County, CA) in April 1983.  Millis got a $10K bonus for his
invention.  Cetus sold his PCR patent to Hoffman-LaRoche for
$300,000,000.

I'd say a 0.0033% bonus was a bit slim, wouldn't you?  "despised
and undeserving"

> I
> would like to get opinions on what were the most profound books and
> thinkers on scientific epistemology you have encountered.

"Our Lady of the Flowers" Jean Genet
 
> By  this I mean a work that totally changed the way you look at the
> world and at science.

"The Story of O"  Uncle Al is fond of tethered owls.
  
> Below is my list. I would be grateful for your
> additions. I
> am really looking for works that are novel and different, orthogonal
> to the ones I listed. For example, I included Bertalanffy's General
> System Theory so I do not want the many, many other books on General
> System Theory.
> 
> I'm specifically looking for the thinkers and books that are not only
> highly original but also under-appreciated and not as widely known as
> they deserve to be. For instance, Aristotle, Plato, and Darwin will
> not make this list as their work is well known and universally
> recognized.
> 
> My list (no particular order):
> 
> Rene Thom: Structural Stability and Morphogenesis
> Ludwig von Bertalanffy: General System Theory
> David Bohm: Wholeness and Implicate order

I once hired a tech straight from UC/Irvine, dual Honors BS in
Chemistry and Biology, the best of a disappointing lot.  Said
hire had never seen a dual stage gas regulator or Swagelock
fittings.  That is your list.

--
Uncle Al
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/
 (Toxic URL! Unsafe for children and most mammals)
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/qz.pdf

In article <235c483f.0407201549.681ffa4@posting.google.com>,
Jeff Lanfield <jlanfield2003@yahoo.com> wrote:
>I am writing a paper on how new ideas gain acceptance in science. I
>would like to get opinions on what were the most profound books and
>thinkers on scientific epistemology you have encountered. 
>
>By  this I mean a work that totally changed the way you look at the
>world and at science.

None.  My understanding of science has evolved slowly, from numerous 
sources and personal experiences.  It's shuffled and stumbled forward as I 
slowly grasp concepts on the fourth attempt at general relativity, 
fifth attempt at quantum field theory, or whatever.  There are certainly 
some very good and useful books, but I can't say I've read any that, as 
you say, have totally changed the way I look at the world and at science.

-- 
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal.  The rest is 
poetry, imagination." -- Max Planck

jlanfield2003@yahoo.com (Jeff Lanfield) wrote in 
news:235c483f.0407201549.681ffa4@posting.google.com:

> I am writing a paper on how new ideas gain acceptance in science. I
> would like to get opinions on what were the most profound books and
> thinkers on scientific epistemology you have encountered. 
> 
> By  this I mean a work that totally changed the way you look at the
> world and at science. Below is my list. I would be grateful for your
> additions. I
> am really looking for works that are novel and different, orthogonal
> to the ones I listed. For example, I included Bertalanffy's General
> System Theory so I do not want the many, many other books on General
> System Theory.
> 
> I'm specifically looking for the thinkers and books that are not only
> highly original but also under-appreciated and not as widely known as
> they deserve to be. For instance, Aristotle, Plato, and Darwin will
> not make this list as their work is well known and universally
> recognized.
> 
> 
> My list (no particular order): 
> 
> Rene Thom: Structural Stability and Morphogenesis
> Ludwig von Bertalanffy: General System Theory 
> David Bohm: Wholeness and Implicate order
> 
> 
> Thanks for your help,
> 
> - Jeff

Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions  (a MUST given your topic!!)
Koestler, The Watershed
de La Mettrie, Man a Machine


Scott