since it's the last post...
this is from way back in the other thread.
We are getting far away from the point I was trying to make. What I was trying to insinuate was that Newtons laws (his three laws, not the law of gravity) are not really verifiable or testable. They are a paradigm in which to look at the world. For example, if I were to show you a body which did not remain at rest even though no KNOWN force was acting upon it you would simply postulate a previously unknown force which must be acting (such as the electromagnetic force). It is simply a circular argument, albeit a very useful one.
i know what you're getting at, but i really think you ought to have waited on kuhn until you had a bit more under your belt.
the terracentric solar system is an inaccurate model. it had a whole paradigm of science built around it. it had testable, useable theories. these testable, useable theories are still useful today. sailors STILL check their instruments against a sextant. newton had a small, weak paradigm in comparison. but his theories are testable. if you know the force acting on an object of specified mass, you can find the acceleration. if you know the acceleration and the mass you can find the force and so on. they tested it by dropping things i'm sure. i could look up his papers, but i'm sure jstor doesn't go back that far. we only ever talk about his formula, but that doesn't mean his paper didn't have loads of experimental data like all other scientific papers.
so before you go proclaiming that newton was a preacher and a philosopher, you need to read his paper. and please, put the kuhn down until you know the subject matter. the structure of scientific revolutions was written in the seventies. WE'VE ALL READ IT. you're not going to wow us with it 30 years later. i appreciate the fervor. but do remember, if your teacher had you read it, chances are it's a pretty well accepted book.
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