Reply to McMaster, Fessenden, et al
Kuhn relates "anomaly" to paradigm. An anomaly is what you have to
find in noise. You can find a lot else in noise that either fits
the paradigm or that for other reasons doesn't constitute an anomaly
(such as random variation). What you are looking for is non-random
variation not adequately explained by the paradigm. That's hard to
find.
Notice that we praise the recognizers and explainers of anomaly only
after the community has accepted the result, i.e., after the paradigm
has shifted. The satisfaction is in repetition and confirmation.
Our examples of new paradigms involve knowledge that is no longer
anomalous to the persons who are discussing it, otherwise the examples
would not be convincing.
But what does it feel like to extract an anomaly? Are we any good at
it? If this were a normal group, the offerings would be poor and the
criticism vicious. Not good. Perhaps LO is different.
I propose the following exercise that tests whether the LO group can
bust paradigms. Your contribution must be a POSITIVE ANSWER to A, B,
or C. You can propose a new item, or an IMPROVEMENT to a prior
contribution. Criticisms without a BETTER ALTERNATIVE are disallowed.
A. State an anomaly. (Within our subject matter).
B. Argue why the anomaly is not adequately explained by the paradigms
available to us. (No straw man arguments. Argue why the
BEST explanations known to you are inadequate.)
C. Create a different explanatory paradigm that is worth discussing.
(According to Kuhn, the new paradigm doesn't have to explain
everything that the prior one does, only the anomaly and something
else to ground it. It helps if the explanation raises new
questions.)
I have no idea whether the group can do this. I offer it simply
because it appears to be a fair test. Any takers?
-- Kent Myers Richard S. Carson Associates, Falls Church, VA kent_myers@smtplink.sra.com