DECIPHERING EAST-SIDE SOUTH AMERICANS INDIGENOUS POPULATIONS DYNAMICS

Abstract

The impressive results of the editorial project featured in this dossier on theprehistory of the Amazon viewed from the Atlantic flank of South America outlinea scientific and ethical success story. The works presented can be seen as a vindication of Max Planck (1950) sinical views of change in science. “A new scientific truthdoes not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, butrather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that isfamiliar with it” He re-emphasized the some view in another part of the same book,asserting that “an important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents: it rarely happens that Saul becomesPaul. What does happen is that its opponents gradually die out, and that the growinggeneration is familiarized with the ideas from the beginning: another instance of thefact that the future lies with the youth”. Thomas Kuhn (1962) “Structure of scientificRevolutions” provided a rational explanation and helped understand what happensin the mind of working researchers, scientists and scholars.