Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know, but I'm not sure what you're asking. Kuhn's point (and mine, by transitivity) is that scientists are human with unavoidable biases, and these biases will influence what work they do. The reason I don't know how to answer your question is that I interpret it to mean: what tangible result do we have before we have our first tangible result? Of course, if that's not what you mean, then please clarify. You…
Thanks Scott. I understand that phlogiston thrived until real honest scientific experiments disproved it. Thanks to which "interpretation" before that point? Can't we call it "shut up, experiment and calculate"? Or, simpler, "do the science."
The analogy I draw from it is not direct, but merely: scientists unavoidably think of their work in certain ways that are themselves not tested. This thinking influences their work.
(You've made some changes since I responded, so let me respond to your last question: No, they cannot. Just as choosing what articles goes into the newspaper makes the news inherently subjective, scientists themselves choose what problems to work on, and experiments to carry out. You want them to just "do the science," but what science? The mental framework that helps them decide what science to do is what Kuhn calls a paradigm, and my claim is that the interpretations of quantum mechanics are such a paradigm. That, then, means that the interpretations are important, even if we can't yet directly test them.)