Kuhn vs Popper - About James H. Collier

. CHAPTER 10 .THE RELIGIOUS UNCONSCIOUSOF THE DEBATEMy suggestion is, then, that Kuhn sees thescientific community on the analogy of a religiouscommunity and sees science as the scientist’sreligion. If that is so, one can perhaps see why heelevates Normal Science above ExtraordinaryScience; for Extraordinary Science corresponds, onthe religious side, to a period of crisis and schism,confusion and despair, to a spiritual catastrophe.John Watkins, ‘Against “Normal Science”’Belief may be a regrettably unavoidable biologicalweakness to be kept under the control of criticism:but commitment is for Popper an outright crime.Imre Lakatos, ‘Methodology of ScientificResearch Programmes’The very idea of a ‘religious unconscious’ to theKuhn–Popper debate seems absurd. After all,our two antagonists scrupulously confined theirattention to examining disciplines that at leastclaimed scientific status. At a personal level, both100