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Kuhn looked at the history of science and argued that science does not simply progress by stages based upon neutral observations

For Kuhn, the history of science is characterized by revolutions in scientific outlook. Scientists have a worldview or "paradigm"

A paradigm is a universally recognizable scientific achievement that, for a time, provides model problems and solutions to a community of practitioners.

Scientists accept the dominant paradigm until anomalies are thrown up.  Scientists then begin to question the basis of the paradigm itself, new theories emerge which challenge the dominant paradigm and eventually one of these new theories becomes accepted as the new paradigm.

A particular work may “define the legitimate problems and methods of a research field for succeeding generations of practitioners.”

This is where the paradigm shift occurs.

The pre-paradigmatic state refers to a period before a scientific consensus has been reached.

Phase 2: Normal Science

A paradigm is established which lays the foundations for legitimate work within the discipline. Scientific work then consists in articulation of the paradigm, in solving puzzles that it throws up.

It is necessary for normal science to be uncritical. If all scientists were critical of a theory and spent time trying to falsify it, no detailed work would ever get done.

Phase 1: Pre-sciencePhase 1: Pre-science

Phase 3: Crisis

"Normal Science, the activity in which most scientists inevitably spend almost all of their time, is predicated on the assumption that the scientific community knows what the world is like

Anomalies become serious, and a crisis develops if the anomalies undermine the basic assumptions of the paradigm and attempts to remove them consistently fail

If the anomalies can be resolved, the crisis is over and normal science resumes. If not, there is a scientific revolution which involves a change of paradigm.

Revoluti

Phase 4: Revolution

Eventually a new paradigm will be established, but not as a result of any logically compelling justification.

The enormous impact of Thomas Kuhn's work can be measured in the changes it brought about in the vocabulary of the philosophy of science: besides "paradigm shift", Kuhn raised the word "paradigm" itself from a term used in certain forms of linguistics to its current broader meaning.

For Kuhn, the choice of paradigm was sustained by, but not ultimately determined by, logical processes.

Kuhn believed that it represented the consensus of the community of scientists

Successive paradigms are incommensurable. Kuhn says that a later paradigm may be a better instrument for solving puzzles than an earlier one.  But if each paradigm defines its own puzzles, what is a puzzle for one paradigm may be no puzzle at all for another

Science does not change its paradigm over night. Younger scientists take a new paradigm forward

Scientists have spent hundreds of years trying to understand how human sensory organs work, concluding that sight is the most important sense, followed hearing, touch, taste and smell.

To answer this question, an international team led by Professor Majid, conducted a large-scale experiment to investigate the ease with which people could communicate about colors, shapes, sounds, textures, tastes and smells

Speakers of 20 diverse languages, including three different sign languages, from across the globe were tested, ranging from hunter-gatherers to post-industrial societies

If the commonly accepted hierarchy of the senses were true, participants in the study should have been able to communicate about vision most easily, followed by sounds, such as loud and quiet; textures, such as smooth and rough; taste, such as sweet and sour; and smell, such as chocolate and coffee

"While English speakers behaved as predicted, describing sight and sound with ease, this was not the case across all cultures

What this study shows us is that we can't always assume that understanding certain human functions within the context of the English language provides us with a universally relevant perspective or solution

In a modern digital-led world, which typically engages sight and hearing, it could be worthwhile learning from other cultures in the way that taste and smell can be communicated

This could be particularly important for the future of some professions, such as the food industry, for example, where being able to communicate about taste and smell is essential

For the sake of everyone who stands to gain from a better knowledge of politics, economics and society, the social sciences need to overcome their inferiority complex, reject hypothetico-deductivism and embrace the fact that they are mature disciplines with no need to emulate other sciences.

Or consider the famous “impossibility theorem,” developed by the economist Kenneth Arrow, which shows that no single voting system can simultaneously satisfy several important principles of fairness. There is no need to test this model with data — in fact, there is no way to test it — and yet the result offers policy makers a powerful lesson: there are unavoidable trade-offs in the design of voting systems.

Unfortunately, the belief that every theory must have its empirical support (and vice versa) now constrains the kinds of social science projects that are undertaken, alters the trajectory of academic careers and drives graduate training. Rather than attempt to imitate the hard sciences, social scientists would be better off doing what they do best: thinking deeply about what prompts human beings to behave the way they do.

theoretical models can be of great value even if they are never supported by empirical testing. In the 1950s, for instance, the economist Anthony Downs offered an elegant explanation for why rival political parties might adopt identical platforms during an election campaign. His model relied on the same strategic logic that explains why two competing gas stations or fast-food restaurants locate across the street from each other — if you don’t move to a central location but your opponent does, your opponent will nab those voters (customers). The best move is for competitors to mimic each other. This framework has proven useful to generations of political scientists even though Mr. Downs did not empirically test it and despite the fact that its main prediction, that candidates will take identical positions in elections, is clearly false. The model offered insight into why candidates move toward the center in competitive elections

Likewise, the analysis of empirical data can be valuable even in the absence of a grand theoretical model. Did the welfare reform championed by Bill Clinton in the 1990s reduce poverty? Are teenage employees adversely affected by increases in the minimum wage?

Answering such questions about the effects of public policies does not require sweeping theoretical claims, just careful attention to the data.

theories are like maps: the test of a map lies not in arbitrarily checking random points but in whether people find it useful to get somewhere.

Economists, political scientists and sociologists have long suffered from an academic inferiority complex: physics envy. They often feel that their disciplines should be on a par with the “real” sciences and self-consciously model their work on them, using language (“theory,” “experiment,” “law”) evocative of physics and chemistry.

The ideal of hypothetico-deductivism is flawed for many reasons. For one thing,

Collective memory is similar, though its loss does not immediately paralyze everyday private activity. But ignorance of history-that is, absent or defective collective memory-does deprive us of the best available guide for public action, especially in encounters with outsider

Often it is enough for experts to know about outsiders, if their advice is listened to. But democratic citizenship and effective participation in the determination of public policy require citizens to share a collective memory, organized into historical knowledge and belief

This value of historical knowledge obviously justifies teaching and learning about what happened in recent times, for the way things are descends from the way they were yesterday and the day before that

in fact, institutions that govern a great deal of our everyday behavior took shape hundreds or even thousands of years ago

Only an acquaintance with the entire human adventure on earth allows us to understand these dimensions of contemporary reality.

it follows that study of history is essential for every young person.

Collective memory is quite the same. Historians are always at work reinterpreting the past, asking new questions, searching new sources and finding new meanings in old documents in order to bring the perspective of new knowledge and experience to bear on the task of understanding the past.

what we know and believe about history is always changing. In other words, our collective, codified memory alters with time just as personal memories do, and for the same reasons.

skeptics are likely to conclude that history has no right to take student time from other subjects. If what is taught today is not really true, how can it claim space in a crowded school curriculum?

what if the world is more complicated and diverse than words can ever tell? What if human minds are incapable of finding' neat pigeon holes into which everything that happens will fit?

What if we have to learn to live with uncertainty and probabilities, and act on the basis of the best guesswork we are capable of?

Then, surely, the changing perspectives of historical understanding are the very best introduction we can have to the practical problems of real life. Then, surely, a serious effort to understand the interplay of change and continuity in human affairs is the only adequate introduction human beings can have to the confusing flow of events that constitutes the actual, adult world.

Memory is not something fixed and forever. As time passes, remembered personal experiences take on new meanings.

Early in this century, teachers and academic administrators pretty well agreed that two sorts of history courses were needed: a survey of the national history of the United States and a survey of European history.

Memory, indeed, makes us human. History, our collective memory, carefully codified and critically revised, makes us social, sharing ideas and ideals with others so as to form all sorts of different human groups

The varieties of history are enormous; facts and probabilities about the past are far too numerous for anyone to comprehend them all. Every sort of human group has its own histor

Where to start? How bring some sort of order to the enormous variety of things known and believed about the past?

Systematic sciences are not enough. They discount time, and therefore oversimplify reality, especially human reality.

This second course was often broadened into a survey of Western civilization in the 1930s and 1940s

But by the 1960s and 1970s these courses were becoming outdated, left behind by the rise of new kinds social and quantitative history, especially the history of women, of Blacks, and of other formerly overlooked groups within the borders of the United States, and of peoples emerging from colonial status in the world beyond our borders.

much harder to combine old with new to make an inclusive, judiciously balanced (and far less novel) introductory course for high school or college students.

But abandoning the effort to present a meaningful portrait of the entire national and civilizational past destroyed the original justification for requiring students to study history

Competing subjects abounded, and no one could or would decide what mattered most and should take precedence. As this happened, studying history became only one among many possible ways of spending time in school.

The costs of this change are now becoming apparent, and many concerned persons agree that returning to a more structured curriculum, in which history ought to play a prominent part, is imperative.

three levels of generality seem likely to have the greatest importance for ordinary people.

First is family, local, neighborhood history

Second is national history, because that is where political power is concentrated in our time.

Last is global history, because intensified communications make encounters with all the other peoples of the earth increasingly important.

Other pasts are certainly worth attention, but are better studied in the context of a prior acquaintance with personal-local, national, and global history. That is because these three levels are the ones that affect most powerfully what all other groups and segments of society actually do.

National history that leaves out Blacks and women and other minorities is no longer acceptable; but American history that leaves out the Founding Fathers and the Constitution is not acceptable either. What is needed is a vision of the whole, warts and all.

the study of history does not lead to exact prediction of future events. Though it fosters practical wisdom, knowledge of the past does not permit anyone to know exactly what is going to happen

Consequently, the lessons of history, though supremely valuable when wisely formulated, become grossly misleading when oversimplifiers try to transfer them mechanically from one age to another, or from one place to another.

Predictable fixity is simply not the human way of behaving. Probabilities and possibilities-together with a few complete surprises-are what we live with and must learn to expect.

Second, as acquaintance with the past expands, delight in knowing more and more can and often does become an end in itself.

On the other hand, studying alien religious beliefs, strange customs, diverse family patterns and vanished social structures shows how differently various human groups have tried to cop

Broadening our humanity and extending our sensibilities by recognizing sameness and difference throughout the recorded past is therefore an important reason for studying history, and especially the history of peoples far away and long ago

For we can only know ourselves by knowing how we resemble and how we differ from others. Acquaintance with the human past is the only way to such self knowledge.

As a result, speech that may be protected for adults outside of the school environment – like offensive or vulgar language – can be restricted for students inside of the school environment.

as long as other requirements are met – the speech is lewd, school-sponsored or involves illegal drug use.

Some courts have considered other factors to determine whether there was a sufficient connection between the speech and the school before applying Tinker to off-campus speech.

They’ve considered whether the speech threatens the school’s obligation to provide a safe learning environment – for example, online bullying – or whether the speech is “reasonably likely” to reach the school or affect the school environment - for example by being directed at the school, school officials or other students.

A few courts have ruled that Tinker does not apply to the off-campus speech at issue in their cases because it did not occur in the school environment

That the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case does not provide any indication of how the court may decide the case.

Whatever decision the court makes, it will likely provide some guidance to students, parents and school officials about what students can and cannot say on social media.

None of that is true. This week, Facebook rushed to deny a report in Gizmodo that said the team in charge of its “trending” news list routinely suppressed conservative points of view. Last month, Gizmodo also reported that Facebook employees asked Mark Zuckerberg, the social network’s chief executive, if the company had a responsibility to “help prevent President Trump in 2017.” Facebook denied it would ever try to manipulate elections.

Even if you believe that Facebook isn’t monkeying with the trending list or actively trying to swing the vote, the reports serve as timely reminders of the ever-increasing potential dangers of Facebook’s hold on the news.

The question isn’t whether Facebook has outsize power to shape the world — of course it does, and of course you should worry about that power. If it wanted to, Facebook could try to sway elections, favor certain policies, or just make you feel a certain way about the world, as it once proved it could do in an experiment devised to measure how emotions spread online.

There is no evidence Facebook is doing anything so alarming now. The danger is nevertheless real. The biggest worry is that Facebook doesn’t seem to recognize its own power, and doesn’t think of itself as a news organization with a well-developed sense of institutional ethics and responsibility, or even a potential for bias. Neither does its audience, which might believe that Facebook is immune to bias because it is run by computers.

That myth should die. It’s true that beyond the Trending box, most of the stories Facebook presents to you are selected by its algorithms, but those algorithms are as infused with bias as any other human editorial decision.

“With Facebook, humans are never not involved. Humans are in every step of the process — in terms of what we’re clicking on, who’s shifting the algorithms behind the scenes, what kind of user testing is being done, and the initial training data provided by humans.”Everything you see on Facebook is therefore the product of these people’s expertise and considered judgment, as well as their conscious and unconscious biases apart from possible malfeasance or potential corruption. It’s often hard to know which, because Facebook’s editorial sensibilities are secret. So are its personalities: Most of the engineers, designers and others who decide what people see on Facebook will remain forever unknown to its audience.

Facebook also has an unmistakable corporate ethos and point of view. The company is staffed mostly by wealthy coastal Americans who tend to support Democrats, and it is wholly controlled by a young billionaire who has expressed policy preferences that many people find objectionable.

You could argue that none of this is unusual. Many large media outlets are powerful, somewhat opaque, operated for profit, and controlled by wealthy people who aren’t shy about their policy agendas — Bloomberg News, The Washington Post, Fox News and The New York Times, to name a few.But there are some reasons to be even more wary of Facebook’s bias. One is institutional. Many mainstream outlets have a rigorous set of rules and norms about what’s acceptable and what’s not in the news business.

Those algorithms could have profound implications for society. For instance, one persistent worry about algorithmic-selected news is that it might reinforce people’s previously held points of view. If News Feed shows news that we’re each likely to Like, it could trap us into echo chambers and contribute to rising political polarization. In a study last year, Facebook’s scientists asserted the echo chamber effect was muted.

are Facebook’s engineering decisions subject to ethical review? Nobody knows.

The other reason to be wary of Facebook’s bias has to do with sheer size. Ms. Caplan notes that when studying bias in traditional media, scholars try to make comparisons across different news outlets. To determine if The Times is ignoring a certain story unfairly, look at competitors like The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. If those outlets are covering a story and The Times isn’t, there could be something amiss about the Times’s news judgment.Such comparative studies are nearly impossible for Facebook. Facebook is personalized, in that what you see on your News Feed is different from what I see on mine, so the only entity in a position to look for systemic bias across all of Facebook is Facebook itself. Even if you could determine the spread of stories across all of Facebook’s readers, what would you compare it to?

The brain states we call emotions exist for one reason: to help us decide what to do next. They reflect our mind’s predictions for what’s likely to happen in the world and therefore serve as an efficient way to prepare us for it. But when the emotions we feel aren’t correctly calibrated for the threat or when we’re making judgments in domains where we have little knowledge or relevant information, our feelings become more likely to lead us astray.

They can help with decisions about who gets the vaccine first when supplies are limited.

"One of those is how much is the virus spreading as the vaccine is being rolled out? And another factor is. How fast is the vaccine being rolled out?"

It's also important to know how effective a vaccine is at preventing disease, how long protection lasts, and whether it not only prevents someone from getting sick but also from transmitting COVID-19.

Larremore says to end a pandemic, it generally makes sense to vaccinate those most capable of spreading disease.

But even if a mathematical model suggests the most effective path, it doesn't provide all the answers public health officials need.

Right now, modelers are trying to help public health officials decide if it makes sense to use a single dose of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccine to extend the limited supply, even though the vaccine has only really been tested using a two-dose regimen

The state population counts that determine each state's share of congressional seats and Electoral College votes for the next decade are not expected to be out until February at the earliest,

Raimondo would take over the position from Wilbur Ross, a Trump appointee who has been found in contempt of Congress by the House for defying a subpoena to turn over documents about the Trump administration's efforts to add a citizenship question to census forms.

"The mission of the Commerce Department is a very simple one — to help spur good-paying jobs, to empower entrepreneurs to innovate and grow, to come together with working families and American businesses to create new opportunities for all of us,"

"Commerce Department employees are getting a terrific new boss who will listen to them, support them, lead from the trenches, and get the very best out of them by holding them to the same high standards she holds herself,"

"And Congress will be getting a partner who is an honest broker of unquestioned integrity."

Scholars are now interested in whether having a vocabulary item for a concept influences thought in domains far from language, such as visual perception.

In the journal Psychological Science,  Martin Maier and Rasha Abdel Rahman investigated whether the color distinction in the Russian blues would help the brain become consciously aware of a stimulus which might otherwise go unnoticed.

The task selected to investigate this is the "attentional blink." This is an experimental paradigm frequently used to test whether a stimuli is consciously noticed.

The current study is an important advance in documenting how linguistic categories influence perception. Consider how this updates the original Russian blues study, in which observers pressed a button to indicate whether two shades of blue were the same or different

In that study, it seems likely that observers silently labeled colors in order to make fast decisions. It is less likely that labeling was used during the attentional blink task, because paying attention to color is not required and indeed was irrelevant to the task.

 The current finding indicates that linguistic knowledge can influence perception, contradicting the traditional view that perception is processed independently from other aspects of cognition, including language.

On a federal judge's order, the surveillance tapes of King are sealed in the National Archives until at least 2027, and ethical questions are posed about whether dissecting these details are yet another invasion of King's privacy.

And of course, there's the concern over King's legacy and how it might crack under revelations that seemingly contradict his near-deified memory.

"Does [the truth of his romantic dalliances] make him in my mind less of an historic civil rights leader?

King's legacy is complicated, but certainly not undone, by MLK/FBI. That's a good thing; the more we see him as an extraordinary but flawed human being, the easier it is to envision a path forward.

He also is the president who has had the most members of his own party vote for impeachment.

but the split among congressional Republicans about the future of the party is accelerating after the events of last week, and it's happening in real time.

"I think every day that goes by, there's going to be people regretting their 'no' vote as more information comes out."

She never spoke on the House floor and made it known she thought it was a vote of conscience, but her vote could potentially cost her spot at the leadership table.

Biden's allies openly worried about what starting the impeachment train moving would mean for the incoming president's ability to secure Senate confirmation for his Cabinet nominees and press for top priorities like coronavirus relief.

"Impeachment now is like a primal scream,"

The symbol for democracy used to be a frequent tourist attraction pre-pandemic for school groups learning about the country's founders and history. Now, it has a new image of what can happen when political rhetoric ignites supporters to turn on their opponents.

Although members praised law enforcement, and there are amazing stories of those who fought off the mob, the serious security failures have many lawmakers questioning the leadership of the force

Members rarely socialized with members of another party. The level of trust has really changed in the past week.

Some Democrats are already pledging not to work with Republicans who voted in favor of challenging the election results.

“There isn’t one method of ‘doing science.’”

In fact, he notes, there are many paths to finding out the answer to something. Which route a researcher chooses may depend on the field of science being studied. It might also depend on whether experimentation is possible, affordable — even ethical.

In the future, she says, students and teachers will be encouraged to think not about the scientific method, but instead about “practices of science” — or the many ways in which scientists look for answers.

But that one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t reflect how scientists in different fields actually “do” science,

In contrast, geologists, scientists who study the history of Earth as recorded in rocks, won’t necessarily do experiments

For example, experimental physicists are scientists who study how particles such as electrons, ions and protons behave. These scientists might perform controlled experiments, starting with clearly defined initial conditions. Then they will change one variable, or factor, at a time.

Geologists are still collecting evidence, “but it’s a different kind of evidence.”

A hypothesis is a testable idea or explanation for something. Starting with a hypothesis is a good way to do science, she acknowledges, “but it’s not the only way.”

“Often, we just start by saying, ‘I wonder’“ Singer says. “Maybe it gives rise to a hypothesis.” Other times, she says, you may need to first gather some data and look to see if a pattern emerges.

Mistakes and unexpected results can be blessings in disguise.

An experiment that doesn’t give the results that a scientist expected does not necessarily mean a researcher did something wrong. In fact, mistakes often point to unexpected results — and sometimes more important data — than the findings that scientists initially anticipated.

Fox sources say that some viewers have sampled Newsmax, yes, but many have just chosen to turn off the news altogether. They're watching Hallmark, HGTV or Netflix instead.

Confusion is certainly apparent among many conservative media producers and commentators -- trying to find their footing as the story of the Capitol assault, and the President's reaction, keeps getting worse."

Fox is focusing on what it calls "Big Tech censorship" instead, but I strongly suspect that most people want news about the terror threat right now, not Twitter. Frankly, many Fox shows are running away from the news rather than reporting on it.

Second: Fox's decision to de-emphasize the news division "in favor of more opinion programming." Third: The opinion shows going "all-in on conspiracies.

Much of your brain’s activity happens outside your awareness. In every moment, your brain must figure out your body’s needs for the next moment and execute a plan to fill those needs in advance.

The budget for your body tracks resources

Each action that spends resources, such as standing up, running, and learning, is like a withdrawal from your account. Actions that replenish your resources, such as eating and sleeping, are like deposits.

Every thought you have, every feeling of happiness or anger or awe you experience, every kindness you extend and every insult you bear or sling is part of your brain’s calculations as it anticipates and budgets your metabolic needs.

This view of the brain has many implications for understanding human beings. So often, for example, we conceive of ourselves in mental terms, separate from the physical

There is no such thing as a purely mental cause, because every mental experience has roots in the physical budgeting of your body

When an unpleasant thought pops into your head, like “I can’t take this craziness anymore,” ask yourself body-budgeting questions. “Did I get enough sleep last night? Am I dehydrated? Should I take a walk? Call a friend? Because I could use a deposit or two in my body budget.”

I’m suggesting that it’s possible to acknowledge what your brain is actually doing and take some comfort from it. Your brain is not for thinking. Everything that it conjures, from thoughts to emotions to dreams, is in the service of body budgeting. This perspective, adopted judiciously, can be a source of resilience in challenging times.

China rejected demands for an international investigation after the Trump administration blamed Beijing for the virus’s spread, which plunged the global economy into its deepest slump since the 1930s.

The coronavirus’s exact origin may never be traced because viruses change quickly, Woolhouse said

pinning down an outbreak’s animal reservoir is typically an exhaustive endeavor that takes years of research including taking animal samples, genetic analysis and epidemiological studies.

he incident “raises the question if the Chinese authorities were trying to interfere,”

Beijing retaliated by blocking imports of Australian beef, wine and other goods.

A year after the virus was first detected in Wuhan, the city is now bustling, with few signs that it was once the epicenter of the outbreak in China. But some residents say they’re still eager to learn about its origin.

covering closely related viruses might help explain how the disease first jumped from animals and clarify what preventive measures are needed to avoid future epidemics.

“Now is not the time to blame anyone,” Shih said. “We shouldn’t say, it’s your fault

The thing that I’ve been most assiduously tracking for the last 20 years is the sort of crossover and mainstreaming of the radical right within the mainstream conservative movement. We saw it during the Bush years, but it really started taking off after Obama was elected.

During the Trump years, he just basically took the lid off Pandora’s box and all the demons came out. Right now, we’re hoping at least to try to get the lid back on, but we’re going to be dealing with all those demons that came flying out for many years afterwards.

I don’t see removing Fox News from the air, but I think that the organization itself really needs a come-to-Jesus moment to recognize that it’s inflicted tremendous harm on the country and really work to repair that damage.

There’s now a sizable section of America that might not be violent extremists or adhere to violent extremist ideology but has been radicalized to this point that they believe in conspiracies and openly support anti-democratic action.

But after so many years, a lot of these radicalizing elements have become so embedded in politics and in the media. It seems like that is a very difficult thing to disentangle.

The plan on Gretchen Whitmer is particularly striking. If I had to guess, what we’re going to be seeing in the next four years is a combination of lone wolf action, as well as organized paramilitary bands engaging in domestic terrorism.

He was part of the group that managed to get on the grounds last week during a protest, and there is this video of him talking to this news reporter from one of the local TV stations and telling her “we’re gonna start killing you, rest in peace, better start looking over your shoulder because we’re gonna start killing all of you.”

I believe, there was a lot of talk about “we need to start targeting the media.” 

. I think that journalists would be wise, especially if they’re doing any reporting on this stuff, to take measures to increase their personal security, and I think news organizations need to be providing bodyguards and security assistance for reporters who are out there in the field.