Thomas Kuhn makes a comparable argument for the role of error in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Paradigm shifts, in Kuhn’s argument, begin with anomalies in the data, when scientists find that their predictions keep turning out to be wrong. When Joseph Priestley first placed a mint plant in a bell jar to deprive it of oxygen, he expected that the plant would die, just as mice or spiders perished in the same circumstances. But he was wrong: the plant thrived. In fact, it thrived even if you burned all the oxygen out of the jar before placing the plant in it. Priestley’s error
...more
