Kuhn, T. S. (1970). The structure of scientific revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Vanderbilt Central Library: Q 175.

K95 Introduction: A role for history Over history there has been a transformation of science. Thomas Kuhn attempts to show how we have been misled in fundamental ways by showing how the concept of science has emerged from the actual research activity itself. Scientists are continually adding to the ever-growing stockpile of information of scientific technique and knowledge. The history of science therein becomes the discipline that chronicles both the successive increments and obstacles in that accumulation. The science historian is concerned with two main tasks: a) They must determine who/when the scientific fact, law, theory was discovered b) They must describe/explain the error, myth, and superstitions that have inhibited the more rapid accumulation of science Kuhn notes that historians of science are finding it harder to see science as a concept of development by accumulation, or a chronicle of an incremental process, because some of the past observations of science have ultimately been discarded as error. These theories that have been cast aside are not unscientific just because they have been discarded. These doubts of science being a cumulative process has resulted in a revelation in the study of science, as historians attempt to display the historical integrity of the science during its own time. For example, not comparing Galileos views to modern times, but to other scientist in his own time, such as teachers, contemporaries and successors. Early development of science has been characterized by a continual competition between a number of distinct views of nature, each compatible with scientific observation and method. What differentiated these schools of thought was not a difference in scientific method, but their different ways in seeing and practicing science. An arbitrary element compounded by personal and historical accident is always a formative element of the beliefs of a scientific community.

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These elements of arbitrariness has had an important effect on scientific development. Normal science is predicted on the assumption that the scientific community knows what the world is like and is willing to defend that assumption. Despite scientific efforts, anomalies always turn up that do not always align with professional expectations, and these anomalies lead to a shift in professional commitment that Kuhn calls scientific revolutions. Each shift in thought by the community necessitates the communities rejection of time honored scientific theory in favor of a new theory that may be incompatible with the original. Such transformations of the scientific world, together with the controversies, define scientific revolutions. New theories are seldom an increment to what is known. Rather, they require a deconstruction of prior theory, a reevaluation of prior facts, and is typically conducted by many people over a significant amount of time. Competition between segments of the scientific community are the only historical process that results in the rejection of previous theory in adoption of another. The Route to Normal Science In Kuhns essay, normal science means research based on one or more past scientific achievements that the community acknowledges for a time as supplying the foundation for further practice. Examples are Aristotles Physica, Franklins Electricity, and Lavoisiers Chemistry. These works served for a time to define legitimate problems and methods in the field, and they were able to succeed due to two reasons: a) Unprecedented achievements was able to attract scientists away from other competing models b) Left a large number of open-ended questions for the community to solve Achievements that share the two above characteristics are referred to as paradigms by Kuhn. This term suggests acceptable examples of scientific practice, such as law, theory, applications, and instrumentation provide models which yield coherent traditions of scientific research.

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It is the study of paradigms what prepares students for membership in the scientific community in which they will later practice and share the same rules and standards. Paradigms are the concrete scientific achievement and locus of professional commitment. There can be a type of science without a binding paradigm, but it is less common. In the past, scientist studying optics before Newtons paradigm were scientists, but the net results of their activity was something less than science because there was no binding set of beliefs and each was forced to build their own desperate foundations. In building their own set of foundations, there was no standard set of methods or phenomena. In the absence of paradigm, all facts that pertain to the development of a given science are likely to seem relevant, and fact gathering is more randomly approached than when linked to a paradigm. In the past, natural history description relevant details may have been dismissed as unrelated to the phenomena. No natural history can be interpreted in the absence of intertwined theoretical and methodological belief that permits selection, evaluation, and criticism. If a body of belief is not implicit in the facts, then it must be externally supplied. It is surprising that with so many scientist describing and interpreting the same range of phenomena that large divergences would disappear to allow the emergence of a single pre-paradigm school of thought. To be accepted as paradigm, a theory must be better than its competitors, but need not explain all the facts of the phenomena. For example, what the Franklin paradigm did for all scientists studying electricity was to determine and suggest which experiments were worth performing, and encourage scientists that they were on the right track, so that they could undertake more detailed and precise work in that area. How does the emergence of a paradigm affect the structure of the scientific group? When paradigms emerge the old ones disappear, and those who cling to the old paradigms do so in isolation, or they are forced to join other groups. The more rigid and defined a scientific group becomes around a paradigm, the more they are able to focus less on building the field

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from scratch, but rather can begin their research where the literature leaves off. The Nature of Normal Science What is the nature of more paradigm focused research? Paradigms act as common law for further articulation and specification under stringent conditions. The success of the emerging paradigm is to be more successful in solving research problems, and also offers a promise of success in still uncompleted research examples. Most scientist engage and focus on solving these uncompleted examples throughout their careers. According to Kuhn, this constitutes normal science. The field of science tends to force nature into a rigid box that the paradigm supplies. No part of normal science is to find new phenomena; in fact, those ideas that do not fit in the box are often not seen at all. Scientists do not aim to invent new theories, and often do not tolerate those by other scientists. Instead, normal scientific research is directed at articulating those theories supplied by the paradigm. These restrictions may appear at first to be defects, but they are essential to the development of science by forcing scientists to investigate nature in a detail and depth that would otherwise not be possible. Normal science has a built in mechanism that relaxes restrictions when a paradigm ceases to be effective and the nature of research problems change. Classifying problems of normal science: 1) Facts that reveal nature (precision, reliability, scope of method) the determination of significant facts. 2) Facts that can be directly compared with paradigm theory (ingenuity of apparatus designed to bring nature and theory closer in alignment) Matching fact with theory. 3) Experiments and observations (fact gathering activity) Articulation of the theory. a) Experiments directed a determining physical constants b) Experiments directed at quantitative laws c) Experiments to further articulate the paradigm

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Theoretical problems of normal science: 1) Predicting factual information (ex. radio waves) 2) Problems with precision 3) Problems that aim at clarification by reformulation 4) Problems that aim at paradigm articulation Normal Science as Puzzle-solving Normal research does not aim to produce novelties, and when the results are not as anticipated, then the project is viewed as a failure (instead of viewing this as a reflection on nature). Often facts outside the paradigm seem unrelated to the progress of science, until they are assimilated by a later paradigm. Even if the results are seen as a failure they are valuable because they add to the scope and precision with how the paradigm is applied. Bringing a normal research problem to a conclusion requires solution of instrumental, conceptual, and mathematical puzzles. Pressing problems (such as a cure for diabetes) are often not puzzles at all, because they may not have a solution, and the criterion of a puzzle is the existence of a solution. Through a paradigm, the scientific community acquires the criterion for choosing problems that can be assumed have solutions. Scientists are often engaged by attempting to solve puzzles that have never been solved before (or solved as well). Kuhn here uses the parallel of puzzles to compare the problems of science. Scientists preserve the rules until the puzzle can be solved and the theory can be successfully applied. Historical studies show gain commitments to science that are both metaphysical and methodological: 1) Metaphysical Paradigm explains what types of entities the world contains. 2) Methodological Paradigm explains what the ultimate common laws must be like It is this higher commitment to understand the world and extend the precision and scope of how it has been ordered that makes a scientist a real scientist. This commitment leads them to scrutinize themselves and others in great empirical detail.

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The existence of a strong network of commitments (conceptual, theoretical, instrumental and methodological) provides the rules and personal challenges needed to bring puzzle-solving to a solution. Kuhn suggests that rules are derived from paradigm, but paradigm can guide research even in the absence of rules. The Priority of Paradigms A historian illustrates theories in their conceptual, observational, and instrumental applications. These are the communitys paradigms revealed in textbooks, lectures and lab exercises. Despite occasional ambiguities, the paradigms of a mature science can be determined with relative ease. The object is to discover the insoluble elements, either explicit or implicit, that the community members may have abstracted from their more global paradigms and deployed as rules in their research. Rule are more difficult to define and agree on than paradigms. Scientists can agree in their identification of a paradigm, without agreeing on the full interpretation or rationalization of it. The existence of a paradigm does not imply that rules exist. Paradigms may be prior to and more binding than any set of rules that can be abstracted from them. Kuhn outlines that paradigms can potentially determine normal science without the intervention of discoverable rules, on the basis of: a) Difficulty in discovering the rules b) In the nature of scientific education, scientist never learn concepts, laws and theories by themselves, but learn them along with their direct observation and application of these concepts. c) Paradigms guide research by direct modeling, and normal science can proceed without rules only so long as the scientific community accepts the particular problem, or the solutions already achieved. Rules become important when paradigms become insecure. As long as a paradigm is secure, it can function without agreement or rationalization. d) Explicit rules, when they exist, are usually common to a very broad scientific group, but paradigms need not be. For example, which a change in quantum mechanics may cause a revolution to one group, it may not for another group due to different interpretations and meanings.

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Anomaly and the Emergence of Scientific Discoveries Normal science is a highly cumulative enterprise, successful in its aim, steady extension of scope and precision of its scientific knowledge. Yet, one standard product is missing normal science does not aim at novelties, in fact, if successful it finds none. However, unsuspected phenomena are found often, and is an effective way of inducing paradigm change. Discoveries are not isolated events, but extended episodes with a recurrent structure. Discovery commences with the awareness of an anomaly that violates the expectation of the paradigm. Often discovery is unexpected, and occurs by pure accident. If both observation and conceptualization, fact and assimilation to theory, are linked to discovery, then discovery is a process that takes time. Discovering a new phenomena is a complex event that involves both recognizing that something is, and what it is. The value placed upon the discovery of a new phenomena varies with the extent to which it has violated the paradigm. Paradigm procedures and applications are necessary to science laws and theories and they have the same restrictive effects. Only as experiment and tentative theory are together articulated to match, does the theory become a paradigm. The paradigm makes the science more rigid, which directs the attention of the group to more detail and precision of observation-theory match. This leads to apparatus development constructed mainly for anticipated functions. Using a developed apparatus, novelty emerges when an anomaly appears after knowing with precision what should be expected, and spurs paradigm change. Characteristics of all discoveries in which a new phenomena emerges*: a) previous awareness of anomaly b) gradual and simultaneous emergence of both observational and conceptual recognition c) consequent change of paradigm categories and procedures often are accompanied by resistance *There is evidence that these characteristics are built into the nature of the perceptual process itself. Novelty emerges with difficulty, manifested by resistance, against a background provided by expectation.

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Crisis and the Emergence of Scientific Theories Discoveries are both destructive and constructive. After discovery is assimilated, scientists can account for a wider range of natural phenomenon, or with greater precision than before. This is gained only after discarding some previously standard beliefs or procedures and replacing components of those paradigms with others. Invention of new theories, like discoveries, also cause large paradigm shifts. Large anomalies in the field cause a state of growing crisis, and demands large-scale paradigm deconstruction and major shifts in the problems and techniques of normal science. The emergence of new theories is usually preceded by a pronounced period of professional insecurity, and is generated by persistent failure of puzzles to be solved as they should. Failure of existing rules is a prelude to search for new ones. Breakdown of normal puzzle-solving activity is not the only ingredient of crisis. Social pressures also lead to reform. Proliferation of many versions of a theory is a usual symptom of crisis. The Response to the Crisis Though anomalies may cause scientists to lose faith in the paradigm, they do not renounce the paradigm, without simultaneously deciding to accept another. To reject one paradigm without substituting another is to reject science itself. Scientist will often devise numerous articulations and ad hoc modification to their theory to eliminate the conflicts with theory that an anomaly produces. Multiple anomalies reinforce crisis, and will permit the emergence of new analysis of science in which the anomaly no longer presents a problem. Normal science must always strive to bring theory and fact (observation) closer in agreement. Discrepancies need not always evoke a profound response, because there are always some discrepancies. In an anomaly is to evoke a

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crisis, it must become more than just an anomaly. It becomes a fixation point for scientific scrutiny, that results in divergent articulations, and rules of normal science are blurred by the inconsistent investigations. The awareness of an anomaly produces more random types of research that test the boundaries of the rules of science. Often it is those scientist that are new to the field that are most likely to be inventive and see old rules as no longer applying to the game. The Nature and Necessity of Scientific Revolutions What are scientific revolutions? So far, Kuhn has indicated that they are non-cumulative developmental episodes in which an older paradigm is replaced in whole or partly by an incompatible new one; however, this does not explain why a change in paradigm should be called a revolution. Kuhn makes a parallel between political revolutions and scientific revolutions. Political revolutions are inaugurated by a growing sense by a restricted segment of the political community that realizes that institutions have ceased to adequately solve the problems posed by an environment that they have in part created. In the same way, scientific revolutions are inaugurated by a growing sense by a restricted narrow subdivision of the scientific community that an existing paradigm has ceased to function adequately in the exploration of an aspect of nature which that paradigm itself has led the way. In both political and scientific development, the sense of malfunction that can lead to crisis is a prerequisite to revolution. Kuhns essay aims to demonstrate that the historical study of paradigm change reveals similar characteristics in the evolution of the sciences. To discover how scientific revolutions are effected, we need to examine the impact of not only nature and logic, but also the technique of persuasive argument within the special groups that constitute the scientific community. Kuhn examines how closely the view of science-as-accumulation is entangled with a dominant epistemology that takes knowledge to be a construction placed directly upon the raw sense data by the mind.

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Cumulative acquisition of unanticipated novelties proves to be a nonexistent exception to the rule of scientific development. Normal science which is cumulative owes its success to scientist selecting problems that can be solved with the techniques and instruments already in existence. The scientist knows what they are looking for and what to anticipate, and new discovery can emerge when anticipations about nature prove to be wrong. In principle, there are 3 types of phenomena about which a new theory might be developed: a) phenomena already well explained by the paradigm b) phenomena in nature already indicated by the existing paradigm that can only be understood through further theory articulation c) phenomena that refuses to be assimilated by existing paradigms (it is this type alone that leads to new theories) Though logical inclusiveness of successive paradigms remains a permissible view, it is historically implausible. Kuhn explains scientific revolutions are necessary, because the inclusiveness is closely associated with early logical positivism and not categorically rejected by successors, and this in turn restricts the range of meaning of a newly accepted theory, so that it could not possibly conflict with any later theory that made predictions about the natural phenomena. Theory application must be restricted to the precision of observed phenomena, so as to prohibit scientists from claiming to speak scientifically about any phenomena not readily observed, and purge extravagant claims for theories. Without commitment to a paradigm, there could be no normal science. Commitment must be extended to areas for which there is no precedent, in order to solve puzzles that have not already been solved. Scientific revolution is a displacement of the conceptual network through which a scientist views the world (perceptions). The difference in successive paradigms is both necessary and irreconcilable, and include substance, methods, problems and standards of solution. Therefore, the reception of a new paradigm necessitates a redefinition of the corresponding science. In fact, the normal scientific tradition that emerges from scientific revolution is often incompatible with what has been done before. Changes in the standards governing permissible problems, concepts and explanations can transform science, and even the world.

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The role of paradigm is not only a vehicle for scientific theory, but also a research activity that provide scientists with not only a map, but the essentials for map making. Therefore, when paradigms change, there are usually some significant shifts in the criteria determining the legitimacy of problems and proposed solutions. Paradigm debates often ask the question which problems is it more significant to have solved? These questions of value can only be answered by the criteria, and that is what makes paradigm debates revolutionary. Revolutions as Changes of World View When paradigms change, the world itself changes with them. In fact, after a scientific revolution scientists are responding to a different world (perceptually). It may be that the paradigm itself is a prerequisite for perception. What a person looks upon is influenced by what previous conceptual experience has taught them to see. What occurs during a scientific revolution is not fully reducible to reinterpretation of stable data scientists collect data from diverse and changing objects. The scientists see the same objects as before, yet sees them transformed by their many details. Interpretation can only articulate paradigm, not correct it. No ordinary sense of the word interpretation fits the flashes of intuition that create new paradigms. The operations and measurements that scientists undertake is collected with difficulty, and form their indices of perception. These operations and measurements are determined by paradigm. Paradigm determines which juxtaposition of paradigm and experience are relevant. A pure observation language has yet to be developed, and paradigms embody a host of expectations upon the observation. The world of science is populated by planets, pendulums, and compound ores and other preconceived results of these paradigms.

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Scientist or laymen do not learn to see the world in pieces, yet sort out the whole form from the flux of experience. Paradigms determine large areas of experience at a time, but it is only after the experience has been determined that the search for a pure observational language can begin. Whatever a scientist may see after a revolution, the scientist is still looking at the same world. However, when nature does not fit a paradigm, the a revolution may change the scientific data ,and after scientists are truly working in a different world. The Invisibility of Revolutions Historical texts have to be written with each scientific revolution, and therefore making science appear to be cumulative. They often see the process as laying bricks, one fact, law or theory added to the information of contemporary science. However, science is not linear, and does not depend on the historical context of inquiry. Textbooks often disguise the changes in the formulation of questions in science, and the episodic nature of scientific discovery. These misconstructs make scientific revolutions invisible. Kuhn emphasizes that more than anything, the pedagogical aspects of science has determined our image of the nature of science in advance. The Resolutions of Revolutions What is the process by which a new candidate for paradigm replaces its predecessor? Verification and falsification in the comparison of theories establishes the agreement or fact with theory. It asks which of the competing theories fits the facts better. There are several reasons why competing paradigms fail to agree: a) They disagree about the problems to be solved. b) There is a misunderstanding between the two competing schools of though, because they may use the same apparatus, terms, or elements borrowed from the old tradition in a new way. c) They may practice their trades in different worlds (perceptually, ie. Theory that the world is flat vs. round). Before the two competing schools can communicate fully, one or the other must experience a conversion or paradigm shift, and it must occur all at once, not in steps. Scientist are not easily brought to this

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transposition, and sometimes groups divide, wait until crisis, or until more shock value is needed for the conversion. Often following a new paradigm requires faith, and this is why a crisis is necessary to make it easier to renounce the old paradigm and take a leap of faith towards the new one. A paradigm must gain supporters that hold firm arguments for the paradigm, and then there is an increasing shift in professional allegiances. Progress Through Revolutions We tend to see any field that makes marked progress as science. However, scientific progress is no different than other fields, but the competing debates may make the field more visible. Paradigm increases the effectiveness (focus) of science. The scientist, unlike a poet, can take a single set of standards for granted, and need not worry about what others will think. The scientific community is an efficient instrument in solving problems, and the result must be progress. Revolutions close with victory of one of the opposing theories, and the outcome of the scientific revolution is seen as progress.

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