> Alan, do you have a theory for why does it happens?
>
No, but Thomas Kuhn says something about it. In his terms I think we are
moving from a pre-paradigm to a paradigm phase of progress of knowledge in
this field. In this situation there is a lot of 'speciation' taking place -
a kind of pre-Cambrian explosion of theories and methods, and a lot of
exploration of ecological niches and strategies. Culturally there seems to
be a lot of 'claiming origins' usually involving arguments about who
invented what and when, and why wasn't that published, and mainly confused
by everyone inventing different names for very similar things. Now, I guess
that Kuhn would say that this is something to do with the way that
scientists gain status in their field.
These discussion lists will be a goldmine for someone doing a PhD in this
kind of field some day :-)
Alan
|