Answers for slide number 12

 Of course older scientists may simply know much more than their
younger colleagues and see more of the ramifications of a new idea.
 Or pissibly the older scientists’s own career is more intimately
connected to the views being challenged and rejecting a new idea
because it threatens one’s position in the scientific community is a
reason.
 One might think that scientists would find such a view repugnant but
time and again scientists can be found making equally cynical remarks
about the inability of other scientists especially older scientists to
change their minds. For example Lavoisier ends his Reflections on
Phlogiston as follows
 Planck’s principle(Max Planck) :- “New scientific truth does not triumph
by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather
because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up
that is familiar with it.”
 T> H. Huxley was so convinced of the inability of older scientists to
change their minds that he declared that men of science ought to be
strangled on their 6oth birthday “ lest age should harden them against
the reception of new truths and make them into clogs upon progress,
the worse in proportion to the influence they had deservedly won”.
Needless to say Huxley took considerable ribbing when he himself
turned 60.

Answers for slide 13

 Young scientists may find it easier to accept new views than old
scientists who may be more strongly committed to the earlier views
although young scientists have been subjected to an education in
which they are indoctrinated with accepted theories and seldom given
any arguments against them, the commitments they make may be
superficial. Firm commitments to a theory may be achieved only by
those who have used it to account for things previously inexplicable
who have experienced the range of its power and the difficulties of
subjecting it to test. Given a crisis or an innovation the older
 generation may firmly believe in the possibility of reconciling it with
established theory and younger scientists on the other hand will
perceive most clearly the incompatibility of innovations and existing
theory
 Eg evolution theory

Answers 16
 Shifting from an old view to a new one is never a clean and seamless
process. As numerous scientists have experienced, trying to get a new
idea accepted is usually a messy process — and a long one. In fact, it
could take until the retirement or death of the holdouts and the influx
of younger and more open minds for the new idea to become
accepted.
 Usually, we’re defensive in the face of change, spouting alternative
theories and contradictory data. Although this type of resistance can
help keep everyone honest, it can also produce very bad effects.
 The short answer is we’re intellectually stubborn. We don’t always
weigh all the evidence before we make a decision, and this is especially
true if a change of opinion requires a wholesale overhaul of our
worldview.
 Theories build upon each other in the natural sciences so it is difficult
to throw one away easily and it is the first one that actually leads to
the discovery of a new one
Eg. Before coprenicus it was Ptolemy was the one who was able to
predict the the positons of planets accurately
 The simpler the theory is to be understood the better
Eg. Copernicus new theory was not that much accurate as it did not
take epicycles into account (he said they move in a circular motion) but
however it was simple and comprehensive.
 Society can have a tremendous impact on how a theory is perceived
Eg Copernicus published his book by the name De Revolutionibus
Orbium Coelestium (On the Revolutions of Heavenly Spheres) at the
end of his life. He probably chose this timing to protect himself from
the ridicule of his timing to protect and the church who thought very
strongly of Aristotelian philosophy
 Theory of evolution
 The confrontation between intuitive understanding and reality is nothing
new. The Copernican idea that the Earth revolves, not the Sun, also
caused serious trouble in the past but nowadays everybody accepts it as
obvious. Will this be the case with the theory of evolution? I have my
doubts.

 Endosymbiotic theory 
Earlier scientists had tried to test the endosymbiotic hypothesis, but
they didn't have the technology that they needed to design a truly fair
test of the idea — so there was simply no strong evidence for the idea.
Sure, mitochondria look a lot like bacteria, but that wasn't enough to
convince scientists that they had once actually been bacteria.
 Chemiosmotic theory
 Until 1978, production of ATP by respiration was believed to be a direct
consequence of the transfer of phosphate groups from molecules in the
respiratory pathway to ADP. In 1961, Peter Mitchell proposed the
chemiosmotic theory linking the mitochondrial membrane and electron
transport to ATP synthesis. This was a paradigm shift, a radical departure
from the previous theory and, as such, met considerable resistance. His
theory was initially disregarded, as the previous theory seemed to
explain the observed facts. This led to almost 20 years of 'Chemiosmotic
Wars', eventually leading to the acceptance of his theory following new
evidence. He received the Nobel Prize for his discovery 17 years after his
original proposal. In his speech at the Nobel Banquet he
said, 'Meanwhile, the originator of a theory may have a very lonely time,
especially if his colleagues find his views of unfamiliar nature, and
difficult to appreciate. The final outcome cannot be known, either to the
originator of a new theory, or to his colleagues and critics, who are bent
on falsifying it. Thus, the scientific innovator may feel all the more lonely
and uncertain.'
 Phlogiston theory