The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

by– Thomas Kuhn

Thomas Samuel Kuhn was an American physicist, historian, and philosopher of science whose controversial 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions was influential in both academic and popular circles, introducing the term "paradigm shift", which has since become an English-language idiom.

Out of date science refuses to go away long after it's been falsified.

The existence of the paradigm makes it possible for normal science to function.

Normal science is predicated on the assumption that the scientific community knows what the world is like.

When the Women's Health Initiative (1998) produced a black swan result, a scientist in frustration said; "We all know what a healthy diet is." In doing so he was merely stating the assumption that everyone worked under. Apparently, their research shows that the assumption must be wrong.

Thomas S. Kuhn

Kuhn studied physics. He found that even when an old idea was proven wrong by clear scientific evidence, the supporters of that idea were seldom convinced. Old ideas seemed to sustained for as long as those who support the idea live.

All paradigms are based on assumptions.

These assumptions cannot be proven, so the assumptions are just taken for granted.

"We know what the world is like."

A paradigm provides a base for significant membership support.

This allows committees to function and "scientific" proposals to be evaluated, and conferences of "experts" to meet.

There are now many "problems to solve."

Research objectives can be set and funding allocated.

And there are agreed rules for doing that.

There are agreed standards for training and for professional practice.

In these conditions normal science can proceed.

Old paradigms don't entirely disappear. That can have great value. For instance the new paradigm for cancer deals with cancer as a genetic disease. In the 1930's Otto Warburg believed that cancer was best described as a metabolic disease. Recent research using glucose restriction, and bariatric chambers to increase the pressure of oxygen in the system, have provided new ways to attack cancers, that depend on Warburg's discoveries.

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