The Harvard trained physicist and famous philosopher and historian of science, Thomas Kuhn, often refers to a psychological experiment in his book ‘The Structure of Scientific Revolutions’ whereby individuals fail to notice individual anomalous cards within a deck.
The experiment illustrates the extent to which people can struggle when they are confronted with information that does not accord with what they have been taught.
Kuhn suggests the experiment demonstrates the nature of the mind and also the process of scientific discovery.
He has written:
‘In science, as in the playing card experiment, novelty emerges only with difficulty, manifested by resistance, against a background provided by expectation.’
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD has worked in industry and government. She is currently researching a novel technique for long-range weather forecasting funded by the B. Macfie Family Foundation.