Trans-Disciplinary Revolution

The very expression "thinking outside the box" suggests that people get caught up in narrow minded boxes and can't see outside their disciplinary frameworks.  I was recently accused of "methodological ambiguity" by someone who clearly doesn't understand engineering.  Engineering and construction use whatever methods work in a variety of juxtapositions to put together a useful whole.  It is not surprising that those of the social sciences would interpret this process as methodological ambiguity, having little familiarity with the engineering sciences.  Bringing a combination of hard sciences and social sciences from nine basic fields of study allows one to see beyond the narrowness of specialties to the broader truths around them.  My nine fields are math, wargaming, science, engineering, accounting, business, politics, peace economics, and global warming.  Only this way leads to true paradigm shifts as certain frames test better than others.  Point number 7 in the next list is crucial to understanding this point.

10 Scientific Revolution Facts

This is mainly a book review by Robert Reuschlein of:

 The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn (1962, 1972)

#1.   Kuhn defines a scientific revolution as a paradigm shift in a scientific field.

#2.   Paradigm shifts change the worldview in a field of science. (Kuhn)

#3.   Kuhn is a historian of science and works primarily in the physical sciences.

#4.   Kuhn says a new theory "requires the reconstruction of prior theory and re-evaluation of prior fact, an intrinsically revolutionary process that is seldom completed by a single" person "and never overnight."

#5.   "History suggests that the road to a firm research consensus is very arduous." (Kuhn)

#6.   "it remains an open question what parts of social science have yet acquired such paradigms at all." (Kuhn)

#7.   "In the absence of a paradigm or some candidate for paradigm, all of the facts that could possibly pertain to the development of a given science are likely to seem equally relevant.  As a result, early fact-gathering is a far more nearly random activity than the one that subsequent scientific development makes familiar." (Kuhn)

#8   "Therefore, at times of revolution, when the normal-scientific tradition changes, the scientists perception of his environment must be re-educated – in some familiar situations he" or she "must learn to see a new gestalt." (Kuhn)

#9   "schools guided by different paradigms are always slightly at cross-purposes." (Kuhn)

#10  "what a person sees depends both on what a person looks at and also upon what a person's previous visual-conceptual experience has taught him or her to see." (Kuhn)

10 Truths About Research

#1.  Military Research is often too military specific to give any civilian benefit to the economy.  New areas of research bring the greatest results, but much military research improves on existing ideas without creating anything truly new.

#2.  Military Research is often too top secret to benefit from normal academic testing in conferences.  Without the widespread dissemination of ideas, serendipity cannot happen.

#3.  Much of mainstream research money goes to follow on research rather than truly original research.  Grants are awarded for research desired by the grantee, not necessarily for new innovations that have no obvious benefactor at first, but often change the world.

#4.  Most of the greatest innovations come from the little person not from major research institutions.  Like many others, Steve Jobs started out in a garage.

#5.  Independent researchers are often looked down upon by the snobs in leading academic institutions.  Colleagues have recommended I present my ideas to various UW Madison forums, but with Madison the 9^th ranked city in snobbery, it's hard to get recognition as an independent researcher.

#6.  Large corporations can buy up inventions that they don't want to compete with.  Such as the movie "Who Killed the Electric Car?" about California in the nineties.

#7.  Large corporations can use the legal system to bankrupt the small inventor.  This one was brought up as a major cause by a presenter on patent process information.

#8.  Large corporations can use government restrictions to block progress of the small inventor.  My personal experience in the small dry cleaner industry up against big oil shows that suspected cancer causing perclorethylene has 300 times tighter restrictions than known carcinogen in oil, benzene.

#9.  Large research institutions can ignore research too far outside the mainstream.  As a colleague of mine has said, 2% improvement makes you a great researcher, but 3% improvement means you are a nut job.

#10.  Peer reviewed research limitations can stop small inventors from following their best instincts.  Imagine if Jesus had to have approval of the Sanhedrin to preach:  that would have ended it right there.

Example of a paradigm shift:

Fall of empire, driven by diverting resources from productivity to the military, affects everything from politics to crime to health as social decay follows economic decay.

https://www.academia.edu/4044446/EMPIRE_ECONOMICS_Peer_Review_AWARD

Facts documenting this paradigm shift:

13 key statistics and the one liner descriptions that sum them up on one page.

https://www.academia.edu/4044456/SUMMARY_Military_DisEconomics_HighAccuracy13

Here is the 11 page heart of the real model that is the "Proof of Peace Economics":

Far from "cherry picking" this includes all 380 numbers used in the 64 year US economic model.

https://www.academia.edu/7632773/PROOF_of_Peace_Economics_11_pages_1986