Kuhn Cycle presented by Thomas Kuhn in early 1960’s. This cycle was a very sophisticated method of telling about the science and its progress. Kuhn presented a model elaborating the ways how a science can contribute in the progress of a society. That model was named as “structure of a scientific revolution.” According to that model, Kuhn negated the outdated ideas about the progress of science. According to Kuhn, the world is relying on the idea in the field of science, and that idea portrays the slow and steady innovations and addition to the existing scientific progress. So Kuhn challenged that ideas and demonstrated that science faces new ideas that come with the passage of time, and these ideas occasionally come.
Almost fifty to sixty years ago Thomas Kuhn model manipulated a new word known as “Paradigm Shift.” According to that word, there is a need to change the basic approaches towards the process of the science. As written by Howard Spodek, historians use data and information for the purpose of recording new data. But at times this information is quoted by different sources, so many sources lead to various data (Howard Spodek). Thomas Kuhn was of the view that a science faces changes that occur with time and when the changes take place, new ideas and new concepts are taking place with a fast speed. When these ideas and new concepts take a new face, it is called paradigm shift by Thomas Kuhn.
Let us see clearly what the cycle that is presented by Thomas Kuhn is.
The cycle revolves around these things:
- The way the normal and existing science is presented. From that point, the cycle of Kuhn starts.
- After examining the normal science Kuhn, starts with his paradigm shift. And Thomas Kuhn states that how the problems in the scientific world identified.
- Once the problem is identified, what will be the method to resolve these problems?
- And for these problems how much science is used normally and in an easier way.
These points considered in the form of “paradigm shift.” It means that these paradigms give the chance for the scientists to work and think on the problems. And once the problems sorted out then the paradigm also suggests ways to solve the problems. With the passage of time, these paradigms got more and more importance and fame as they were very helpful in sorting out problems and suggesting solutions to these problems.
As we have briefly stated the Kuhn cycle and now we will see how important it is in our scientific world. The most amazing and interesting part of Thomas Kuhn cycle is the presenting the theory by a single man. This single man has brought the difference in the scientific world and has changed the notion about the science as we all used to describe till today. As we depend on one-sided theories of science, we assumed science as a philosophy or even assumed science as ideas that are generating day by day and adding to the already existing ideas. Thomas Kuhn intercepted the Aristotle ideas, Newton’s ideas. According to Kuhn, Aristotle mentioned the change, and that change does not mean only generalized form but that change means the physical change as well as generalized change. So Kuhn was of the view that the past theories as presented by Aristotle or even by Newton were not wrong. Those need more precise presentation, and one must be clever enough to look inside the theories presented by those scientists.
So in brief we can say that Kuhn theory brought science from the philosophical and past measures to new and intellectual thinking. Kuhn model shows some sciences can be under coverage of the paradigm shift, but there are many other sciences that do not come under his model.
References:
Spodek, Howard. The World's History to 1500. Prentice Hall PTR,, 2000.
