Ideas+Bank

"People naturally think of science as an incremental process, sometimes accelerated by a brilliant figure making sudden discoveries. In this view, science is basically linear, and moments of great progress are just extra long leaps in the steady march toward truth.But author [|Thomas Kuhn (1922-96)], in his influential 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, presents an alternative. According to Kuhn, normal science is guided by [|paradigms] —ways of seeing and thinking that depend on shared facts, procedures, and beliefs, embedded not just in scientific practice but in culture and society. Paradigms are usually stable; but periodically, Kuhn argues, anomalies and radical new theories pile up, creating a crack in the existing paradigm and prompting a paradigm shift. In a paradigm shift, old ideas are thrown out and new ones quickly developed—creating conflict and confusion along the way." (WSC science guide)