Transfer of allegiance from theory to theory

Wednesday August 23, 2017

Toward the end of Kuhn's Objectivity, Value Judgment, and Theory Choice, he says something that feels relevant to modern popular debate:

...communication between proponents of different theories is inevitably partial, that what each takes to be facts depends in part on the theory he espouses, and that an individual's transfer of allegiance from theory to theory is often better described as conversion than as choice.

Kuhn describes the investigation and development of non-mainstream ideas as a benefit resulting from diversity of opinion. At the level of conspiracy theory, and when choice of what to believe is based on problematic desiderata like greed and racism, it seems to become a pathology.