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Does All of Science Really Move In 'Paradigm Shifts'?

Posted by Soulskill on from the corporate-science-certainly-does dept.

ATKeiper writes "Thomas Kuhn's landmark book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions just turned fifty years old. In that book, Kuhn coined the expression 'paradigm shift' to describe revolutionary changes in scientific fields — such as the replacement of the geocentric understanding of the universe with the heliocentric model of the solar system. The book was hotly debated for claiming that different scientific paradigms were 'incommensurable,' which implied (for example) that Newton was no more right about gravity than Aristotle. A new essay in The New Atlantis revisits the controversy and asks whether the fact that Kuhn based his argument almost exclusively on physics means that it does not apply as well to major developments in biology or, for that matter, to the social sciences."

7 of 265 comments (clear)

  1. I didn't think so,but when by ackthpt · · Score: 5, Funny

    my wheel barrow broke I just said, "Dang it!", went to the shed and invented an anti-gravity lift to move the manure around the back lot.

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    A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
    1. Re:I didn't think so,but when by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      my wheel barrow broke I just said, "Dang it!", went to the shed and invented an anti-gravity lift to move the manure around the back lot.

      Same situation, except I used a hovercraft. It worked well until the shit hit the fan.

    2. Re:I didn't think so,but when by dkleinsc · · Score: 3, Funny

      Well, that's better than my challenge: My hovercraft is full of eels.

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      I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
    3. Re:I didn't think so,but when by TeknoHog · · Score: 4, Funny

      I've had it with these motherfucking eels on this motherfucking hovercraft!

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      Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
  2. Re:Kuhn Paradigms by Samantha+Wright · · Score: 1, Funny

    Aha, but now you have fallen into the devious trap! For it is forbidden to inform physicists that the rest of the world does not work the same way they do. The Gods decreed several thousand years ago that no man, woman, or child should ever do such a thing, lest physicists become aware of the other sciences and try to interfere. There can only be one punishment for a crime this grievous: death by total protonic reversal!

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  3. Re:Kuhn Paradigms by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    The Gods decreed several thousand years ago that no man, woman, or child should ever do such a thing

    That is, assuming spherical men, women, and children in a vacuum.

  4. Re:Yes, Kuhn was almost perfectly wrong by Samantha+Wright · · Score: 4, Funny

    Einstein still claims...

    Wait, what?

    This is very disturbing.

    --
    Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!