Abstracts Are Essential to a Fuller Explanation

Newton's predictions are excellent in the context of bridge building. But they are hopelessly wrong when explaining a pole star or quasar. To get all those right, one needs einstein's radically different explanations. Such large discontinuities in the meanings of successive scientific theories have no biological analogue. In an evolving species, the dominant strain of each generation differs only slightly from that in the previous generation. Nevertheless, scientific discovery is a gradual process too. Nearly all the criticism and rejection of bad explanations takes place inside the scientists minds. As papa put it, we can let our theories die in our place.