The first two articles were written by Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996), an American historian and

philosopher of science, he obtained his bachelor, master, and Ph.D. degrees in physics from
Harvard College. He taught at Harvard, the University of California Berkeley, and the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Kuhn was well known for his book The
Structure of Scientific Revolution (1962) which was an influential work in the field of the
history of science and one of the most cited academic books of all time. The article to be
discussed is actually an excerpt from that famous book. In his text, Kuhn describes how
scientific revolutions occur when dominant theories can no longer explain observations or
experiments and affect the field of research. He argues that scientists then seek solutions to
resolve the inconsistencies and repeated failures that arise, and these inconsistencies can
become increasingly significant until they reach a crisis that leads to a paradigm shift which
refers to the abandonment of old paradigms and the emergence of new theories. The
emergence is usually preceded by a period of professional collapse. He elaborated on this
argument by providing three examples of crises that happened throughout history in different
periods and fields: Astronomy, chemistry, and physics which were all followed by
revolutionary theories: the Copernicus astrology, Lavoisier combustion theory, and the
relativity theory respectively. Kuhn highlights that the emergence of a new or more precisely
a revolutionary theory is probably preceded by several failures of the normal/dominant
theories in solving the problems. It comes as a direct retort to the crisis state that lasted a long
period of time and the shift usually takes place after a decade or two.
The main idea of the text was to prove that paradigms can absorb anomalies by way of minor
modification. However, this is not possible when the paradigm repeatedly fails to account for
large numbers of anomalies. The author also describes different stages that occur during a
scientific revolution, such as the formation of a community of scientists who defend a new
theory, the struggle for acceptance of that theory, and ultimately the emergence of a new
scientific perspective.
The second text is also a Kuhn work, the eighth chapter of his “The essential tension” book.
Actually, it was written before the first text (Structures of Scientific Revolutions). In his
essay, “The Function of Measurement in Modern Physical Science”, Kuhn makes a clear
distinction between normal and extraordinary measurement. We can clearly observe that this
text is a kind of anticipation of his future work and a glimpse into his ideas about normal and
revolutionary phases of science and paradigm shift which were discussed in the first text.
Kuhn examines the role of measurement in science, and how it relates to theory choice. He
argues that measurements play a key role in the process of scientific revolutions, as they can
reveal anomalies in existing theories, leading to a crisis and the eventual development of new
theories. He also describes how measurements are used to test and verify scientific theories.
On the other side, the text clearly describes how it is not always smooth to solve disputes by
measurements, especially in cases where it’s difficult to actualize and measure (Newton and
Einstein works). Instead, acceptable approximations and proof of one successful experiment
are valid. Kuhn also describes how generally the scientific theories were accepted prior to the
introduction of the corresponding measurement methods which are to be tested against the
theory’s prediction only and not vis versa as he mentioned: “The road from scientific law to
scientific measurement can rarely be traveled in the reverse direction”. Thus, in the context of
physical sciences, the measurement role is not theory-testing, instead, apply it with more
precision to the extent that lets the anomalies appear, therefore a crisis arises and
consequently the scientific revolution. It is important to mention that Kuhn did not eliminate
the function of measurement in theory testing rather than theory testing in isolation. There
should exist another theory- which is proposed as a solution for existing anomalies generated
from precise measures- to compare with. Overall, Kuhn emphasizes that measurements are
not just a passive means of testing theories, but they are also actively involved in the process
of scientific change and that they play a crucial role in theory-building and scientific
revolutions.
The third article is written by Constant Edward II, an American historian and Northwestern
University graduate and a former professor of history at Carnegie Mellon University. In this
article, Constant presents a model for understanding technological change and applies it to the
case of the turbojet revolution, which occurred in the 1940s in the field of aviation. This
model views technological change as a result of changes in knowledge and is based on an
evolutionary epistemology perspective. He uses concepts from the philosophy of science,
specifically Kuhn’s paradigm notions to showcase that there is a community structure in
technological practice with traditional practices and a focus on solving problems through
normal technology. He argues that technological change is initiated by recognizing two types
of failures: the failure of normal technology and the current paradigm to resolve problems and
the failure of the paradigm itself. Technological change is driven by failure recognition. He
supports his ideas by stating that in the thirteens, the rise of turbojets was not a response to
any current failure of the conventional piston engine which had reached its development peak.
Instead, they were driven by the realization that the existing aircraft propulsion system would
eventually encounter challenges and is insufficient, and that it was necessary to develop a
completely different system. This leads us to the concept of discontinuous change which
refers to a paradigm shift as Kuhn named it. To sum up, Kuhn’s model was originally
designed to justify these discontinuities in the history of science theory by arguing that the
development of a new paradigm is a response to existing anomalies accumulation. Constant
on the other side adopts the paradigm shift concept but highlights that the development of new
paradigms doesn’t necessarily occur when conventionally accepted practices and normal
science fail to solve the problems but rather when a set of practitioners believe that these
practices will break down at some point in the future under different future circumstances and
the anomaly is presumptive.