Paradigm

What is the scientific revolution and how do we get there? That is a question that many scientists have asked and have been debating over for years. According to Thomas S. Kuhn, founder of "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions," the scientific revolution consist of two main stages, they are the Normal science and the Crisis science stages. According to Kuhn, "a particular paradigm or set of fundamental assumptions are what make science a set of fundamental beliefs that are so ingrained in out society that we hardly know they exist, much less examine them" (The Economist).

"The Structure of Scientific Revolutions," was established while Professor Kuhn was a graduate student in theoretical physics. His work collapsed the widely held notion that scientific change is a strictly rational process.

According to Kuhn, science is not the steady, cumulative acquisition of knowledge. Instead, it is "a series of peaceful interludes punctuated by intellectually violent revolutions." And in those revolutions, it is where, "one conceptual world view is replaced by another." For example, Einstein's theory of relativity could challenge Newton's concepts of physics. Lavoisier's discovery of oxygen could sweep away earlier ideas about phlogiston, the imaginary element believed to cause combustion. Galileo's supposed experiments with wood and lead balls dropped from the Leaning Tower of Pisa could banish the Aristotelian theory that bodies fell at a speed proportion to their weight. And Darwin's theory of natural selection could overthrow theories of a world governed by design. As a result of these revolutions came Kuhn’s Normal science and Crisis science.

Normal science according to Kuhn is considered the paradigm and in the paradigm there consist the exemplar, theory, tacit (learning by practices), and the anomalies. The exemplar is the set of procedures or rules that prove or disprove the paradigm. Normal science extends the paradigm to new examples. But sometime the exemplar does not bring about the truth, it does not prove the paradigm. This is where Kuhn’s second theory comes into play. Kuhn’s second theory is the Crisis theory. The Crisis theory comes into play when the exemplar becomes an anomaly. Anomaly occurs when an exemplar does not prove that paradigm. Kuhn’s crisis theory is that, use what went wrong in the exemplar, the anomaly, and create a new exemplar.

Kuhn argued that the typical scientist was not an objective, free thinker and skeptic. Rather, he was a somewhat conservative individual who accepted what he was taught and applied his knowledge to solving the problems that came before him. The problem was that the typical scientist did not question how and why.

In so doing, Professor Kuhn maintained, "these scientists accepted a paradigm--and archetypal solution to a problem, like Ptolemy's theory that the Sun revolves around the Earth." Generally conservative, scientists would tend to solve problems in ways that extended the scope of the paradigm.

In such periods, he maintained, scientists tend to resist research that might signal the development of a new paradigm, like the work of the astronomer Aristarchus, who theorized in the third century B.C. that the planets revolve around the Sun. But, Professor Kuhn said, situations arose that the paradigm could not account for or that contradicted it.

The new paradigm cannot build on the one that precedes it, he maintained. It can only supplant it. The two, he said, were "incommensurable."

Thomas Kuhn's theory is widely used today. Vice President Al Gore, in his June 7 commencement address, used Kuhn's theories to frame his argument about the relationship between science and technology. He said, "Well-established theories collapse under the weight of new facts and observations which cannot be explained, and then accumulate to the point where the once useful theory is clearly obsolete." As new facts continue to accumulate, a new, more accurate paradigm must replace the old one. Kuhn's theory is widely used in the Democratic party, which is to learn what is wrong in the government and change it ( The Tech).

Just as Kuhn says that a particular paradigm or set of fundamental assumptions are what make a science, so too we live in this world with a set of fundamental beliefs that are so ingrained in our society that we hardly know they exist, much less examine them.

 

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"Thomas S. Kuhn," The Tech. 1996

http:///www.the-tech.mit.edu/v116/n28/kuhn.28.html

"Thomas Samuel Kuhn," The Economist. July 13, 1996

http://www.lakefieldcs.on.ca/dept/science/ScienceAndSocietyOAC/History/Kuhnsr.html

Gelder, Van Lawrence. "Thomas S. Kuhn, Scholar Who

Altered the Paradigm of Scientific Change Dies at 73,"

New York Times June 1995.