Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Science and Industry: A Theory of Networks and Paradigms
Contrary to scientific activity, industries are classified for purposes of national statistics. Scientific specialty classifications, as discussed previously, are input oriented. Industrial classifications, on the contrary, are mostly output-oriented. According to the majority of theorists in industrial economics, these classifications are highly imperfect (wijnberg, In theory, the industry consists of those enterprises who are in competition (boyer, 1984) and who form a network of structurally equivalent actors (burt, As will be discussed further below, many similarities exist between networks of scientists and networks of enterprises. Moreover, it will be argued that different types of networks, as they evolve as the technology matures from a body of knowledge rooted in scientific theory and technological practice ('input-orientation') to commercial 'hardware' ('output-orientation') can be used to illustrate the paradigm-shift which occurs during this process.
The modern popularity of the term paradigm started with Kuhn's alternative (1970) to strict Popperian falsification in which theories develop gradually and steadily into better theories. Kuhn considered the growth of science to consist of relatively long periods of 'normal science, ' operating within the confines of a specific 'scientific paradigm, ' alternating with 'scientific revolutions, ' propelling new paradigms to the forefront. However, Kuhn's use of the paradigm concept was, at least, ambiguous. Its contents ranged from actual experiments, theories or artifacts serving as guidelines to all scientists in a certain field to a complete set of search heuristics to identify problems, to guide problem-solving, and to express and to evaluate results.
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