Ruse Michael
Program in the History and Philosophy of Science, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306, USA.
Endeavour. 2014 Sep-Dec;38(3-4):159-68. doi: 10.1016/j.endeavour.2014.10.002. Epub 2014 Nov 1.
Was there a Darwinian Revolution and was it but part of the Scientific Revolution? Before Thomas Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions in 1962, most people thought that there was a Darwinian Revolution, that it was in some sense connected to the Scientific Revolution, but that neither question nor answer was terribly interesting. Then revolutions in science became a matter of intense debate, not so much about their very existence but about their nature. Was there a switch in world-views? Did the facts change? What was the importance of social groups? And so forth. Recently however some students of the history of science have started to argue that the very questions are misconceived and that there cannot have been a Darwinian Revolution and its relationship to the Scientific Revolution is imaginary because there are no such revolutions in science! This paper takes a sympathetic look at these issues, concluding that there is still life in the revolution-in-science issue, that Kuhn's book was seminal and still has things of importance to say, but that matters are more complex and more interesting than we thought back then.
是否存在一场达尔文革命，它是否只是科学革命的一部分？在1962年托马斯·库恩的《科学革命的结构》出版之前，大多数人认为存在一场达尔文革命，它在某种意义上与科学革命相关，但无论是问题还是答案都没什么特别有趣的。后来，科学革命成为了激烈辩论的话题，与其说是关于它们是否存在，不如说是关于它们的本质。世界观有转变吗？事实改变了吗？社会群体的重要性是什么？等等。然而最近，一些科学史研究者开始争辩说，这些问题本身就被误解了，不可能存在一场达尔文革命，而且它与科学革命的关系是虚构的，因为科学中不存在这样的革命！本文以赞同的态度审视这些问题，得出的结论是，科学革命问题仍有探讨价值，库恩的书具有开创性，仍有重要观点可说，但事情比我们当时所想的更复杂、更有趣。
