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

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."

Comments

I didn't think so,but when

[ackthpt]

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.

Re:I didn't think so,but when

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:I didn't think so,but when

[dkleinsc]

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

Re:I didn't think so,but when

[TeknoHog]

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

Re:Kuhn Paradigms

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Yes, Kuhn was almost perfectly wrong

[Samantha Wright]

Einstein still claims...

Wait, what?

This is very disturbing.