The chief characteristic of a paradigm, Kuhn argued, is that it has its own set of rules and illuminates its own set of facts. Each of these works triggered a revolution, rendering irrelevant much of what came before them. Aristotle’s “Physica,” Ptolemy’s “Almagest,” Newton’s “Principia” and Lavoisier’s “Chemistry” are examples of scientific classics that gave rise to new paradigms. A paradigm, in his formulation, is a constellation of facts, theories, methods, and assumptions about reality that allows researchers to isolate data, elaborate theories, and solve problems. Kuhn used the word “paradigm” to describe this conceptual matrix. Once the matrix changed, the way science was done and applied was fundamentally different. Instead each theory was a revolutionary break from the previous theory, resulting in the arbitrary replacement of one conceptual matrix, or worldview, by another. There was no steady accumulation of truth in the form of objective knowledge about the physical universe. Kuhn showed that the theories of Copernicus, Newton, and Einstein were all self-contained and “incommensurable” with one another. Rather, it’s one of radical shifts of vision in which a multitude of nonrational and nonempirical factors come into play. Kuhn showed that the history of science is not one of linear, rational progress moving toward ever more accurate and complete knowledge of an objective reality. The book explores the psychology of belief that governs the acceptance of new concepts and innovations in science.
Fifty years on, it still represents perhaps the best thinking on how transformation happens, who drives it, why it’s so vehemently resisted, and what it really asks of people. Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, a slim little book that introduced the word “paradigm” into common parlance and shattered our conventional way of looking at change. It’s been almost a half-century since the publication of Thomas S. University of Chicago Press, 1996, 226 pages The Structure of Scientific Revolutions :: A Book Review by Scott London
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