Jens:
The ideas I've posted are generally consistent with my viewpoint, but, since I'm not the expert, I thought it would be a good idea to let Kuhn do most of the talking. Especially since I was accused of just pulling some quotes off of Amazon when I invoked his name earlier, I wanted to dig a little deeper.
Additionally, the exercise demonstrates my depth of (or lack of) understanding of a serious work after using the photoreading technique. Remember: I'm far from an expert at photoreading yet, and I'm certainly not a scientific historian.
For a different take on evolution, I recommend Jonathan Weiner's "The Beak of the Finch." I gave away my copy, but I recall his contention is that--in the case of Darwin's finches, at least--evolution is ongoing, observable, and often reverses itself depending on environmental and other circumstances.
In both cases (and this is me speaking), I think I disagree mildly with your position. Humans tend to flatten, to simplify, and to misapprehend at times. It's part of our physiology to extract patterns from observations at the cost of some detail.
The process of evolution--of physical change from one generation to the next--is much more frenetic than you suggest. It's far from a "direct line of progression." Life on earth is amazingly diverse--and often evolutionary changes can be observed geographically as well as temporally. It's not an intuitive idea, but it's documented.
I also think I haven't properly represented Kuhn's assertion that scientific truth is variable--that it depends on the paradigm, the context of the time. This is astounding, at least from an orthodox scientific perspective!
He's not saying "two plus two is sometimes five," but he is saying, in context, Ptolemy was right for his time. The theory held for hundreds of years. He wasn't disproven; just superceded.
And what Ptolemy was saying was not only something that fit the observations, it was intrinsically right. Given the context, it was a scientific truth, plain and simple.
I don't know if I entirely buy that, and I'll bet you wouldn't go that far, either, but it's an interesting thought.
--George
