@ Jag. I have encountered the word 'paradigm' in social science too, and also the term 'paradigm shift'. I think the latter originates in the philosophy of science. It describes how new discoveries can radically change the view that scientists have of the world. But people may tend to provide an account of the history of a song or a singer or an event that reflects the folkloric paradigm within which they are working, I suppose.

In the piece I cited at the start of the thread, Jenkins makes use of another concept from social science that has relevant potential: 'confirmation bias'. It can be described as a tendency to select and interpret and recall new information in a way that strengthens existing beliefs. The phenomenon has been well documented in Psychology and Jenkins applies it to the emergence of the 'misleading tale' about the origins of The Cowboy's Lament. He says that cavalier attitudes to evidence and sheer carelessness (as in the Dublin/Cork error) played a part but says that 'the role of preconceptions in the selection of evidence and the encouragement of unsupported and often unacknowledged speculation' while 'inconvenient counter-indications' are ignored.

He says that self-belief and considerable investment in their own sense of being an authority may have made it harder for some people to acknowledge that they have got it wrong.

So when researching the history of a song and evaluating what has been written about it, these are factors to consider taking into account.

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I should perhaps clarify that I enjoy a discussion but that I do not like it when a discussion turns combative or descends into insults. Harker somewhere uses the phrase 'bullshit anti-intellectualism' and I think perhaps we may have seen hints of it on Mudcat from time to time.