 According to Shan (2019), “science progresses if more useful research problems and their corresponding solutions are proposed”. This definition involves both problem-defining and problem-solving, as illustrated by the development of early genetics from Darwin to Bateson. Shan gives up the typical Kuhn-Laudan assumption that the scientific community is able to know whether it makes progress or not, and is open to the introduction of the notions of know-how and perspectival truth, so that his “new functional approach” is a compromise with what Bird (2007) calls the “epistemic view” of progress.