Kuhn vs Popper - About James H. Collier

. CHAPTER 12 .THE UNIVERSITY AS THEABSENT PRESENCE OF THEKUHN–POPPER DEBATEI would suggest that no successful institutionalisationof science (successful, that is, from thepoint of view of scientific progress alone) everrelied at all heavily on the judgment of a man’suniversity’s colleagues. I think that where sciencehas flourished in the university setting, it hasunfortunately been primarily by persuading theuniversity, sometimes quite unwillingly, to relinquishits criteria of judgment in favor of those ofthe largely external professional community.Thomas Kuhn, letter to Jerome Ravetz, 21June 1972The differences between Kuhn and Popper play intoa far-reaching debate over the role of the universityin society. However, the terms of this debate remainmostly implicit in their writings. For someone whoregarded technical training as the most importantsocial process in the maintenance and promotionof normal science, Kuhn said remarkably littleabout exactly where this training should occur,122