(2003-08-21) Raymond Vs Kuhn

Eric Raymond counters Thomas Kuhn's StructureOfScientificRevolutions Paradigm Shift model. Kuhn's basic model that paradigm changes are generational - you have to wait for the old dinosaurs to die - is dramatically falsified by the history of early 20th-century Physics. Despite well-publicized exceptions like Albert Einstein's refusal to accept "spooky action at a distance", the record shows us that a generation of physicists handled not one but two major paradigm shifts in their lifetimes - Relativity and Quantum Mechanics - quite smoothly indeed.