The Scientific Revolution has been subjected to philosophical evaluation for quite a long time. Among the most prominent people that have subjected the scientific revolution to a thorough thought process is Thomas Kuhn. According to Thomas Kuhn, scientific history has been characterized by changes in the scientific outlook (Dilworth 70). This can be best explained by the fact that the scientific community usually accepts a dominant paradigm, until anomalies arise. As time passes, scientists question the paradigm itself from which new ideas and theories emerge, further changing the outlook. In support of Kuhn’s views, this paper seeks to explain that the scientific revolution period can progress science in a substantive way.
This paper will discuss how Thomas Kuhn’s thought process of arriving at the Structure of Scientific Revolutions. A section of the essay will address the stages of scientific change and what goes in each stage that can lead to the progression of science. As highlighted by Kuhn, progression of science is only displayed in the problem solving stage. The paper will take a more detail approach about the support of scientific revolutions and why the views of Kuhn are an important aspect of progress. The paper will discuss Popper’s objections of Kuhn’s views that scientific progression goes through two kinds of change. Change in normal science and a change in revolutionary science. Popper believed in falsifiability of conjecture and refutation of theories. Kuhn responds by stating that scientists don’t try to falsify conjectures through tests since puzzle solving occurs within the paradigm framework while working with a normal science. The essay will be concluded with explainable defense of Kuhn’s view on the progression of science.
According to Kuhn, scientific revolutions go through the following stages: the first is the pre-paradigm period in which one will start from the bottom and will attempt to build science from scratch. This stage will consist of incomplete theories due to a lack of paradigms which help to organize information (Andersen and Chen 78). The second stage is normal science, where the puzzle solving demarcation criterion is established. This stage is followed by the third stage which involves the period of crisis in which includes anomalies. A crisis occurs when the anomalies significantly threaten a paradigm. When an anomaly provokes a crisis, science enters into the fourth stage. The fourth stage is the scientific revolution stage in which prior paradigms are re-examined and a new paradigm is established. Finally, the fifth stage is the normal science that embraces the new paradigm-paradigm shift. During the pre-paradigm period stage, theories which conflict with each other are constituted. They usually possess their own set of theory dependent observations and constantly debate over fundamentals.
The pre-paradigm period is an immature period in which there is a lack of consensus, no common body of belief, standards, methods or procedures, and the only facts that are gathered are from casual observations. The common body of belief includes the metaphysical assumptions. An example of this is that the heavens are made of planets that sit on crystalline spheres. In order for science to move away from immaturity, mature science must emerge. Mature science is governed by a paradigm which is a framework that includes all the accepted views on a specific subject (Kuhn, 25). According to Peter Godfrey-Smith, there are two main senses of paradigm which are: broad sense of paradigm and the narrow sense of paradigm. The broad sense is also known as the disciplinary matrix which consists of the methodology, thoughts, habits and worldview. This sense has a set of shared rules and standards for practice. It also has a set of shared beliefs, values, instruments, techniques and metaphysical assumptions (Godfrey-Smith, 76-77). The narrow sense is also known as the exemplar and is part of the disciplinary matrix. The exemplar is a specific achievement which provides the foundation for the discipline. This can be demonstrated by the Mendel’s experiments with peas which became the basis of modern genetics (Godfrey-Smith, 77). The exemplar is important because it suggests approaches to solving problems and serves as a standard. Such as in the Mendel experiment, his theories are still applicable to today’s society.
Normal science adheres to only one disciplinary matrix and as a result, debates about fundamentals are closed off. During the first normal science stage, there is an establishment of the paradigm which lays the foundation that legitimizes the scientific work done within a particular scientific discipline. At this stage, empirical work is done that articulates the theory and resolves ambiguities (puzzle solving) (Kuhn, 10). A paradigm sets precedent and normal science is a conventional basis for research. Normal science will proceed on the basis of perceived similarity to exemplars. These exemplars help to work out the details of puzzle solving. As a result, acceptance of solutions that are similar to the exemplar will progress science.
An anomaly occurs when a puzzle cannot be solved. The anomaly still plays an important role and can’t be easily written off as unnecessary research. It still has to be present even though it fails to conform to the known scientific beliefs and practices. A known example of an anomaly includes the Newtonian mechanics that believes that the speed of light issued from a moving source should be different (Chalmers, 109). However, through careful experiments done in the 19th century, scientists found no such difference, even when they used the most accurate instruments. The three ways that scientists can respond to the anomalies is to: incorporate the anomaly into the paradigm such as the Ptolemaic system, introduce new approaches to better accommodate the anomaly (Phases of Venus) and ignore or tag it for later (Newton’s law of universal gravitation (Chalmers, 109). One of these approaches will end up working well and a paradigm shift will occur constituting the basis of the scientific revolution. The new paradigm will become popularized everywhere from journals to textbooks. The quality of the paradigm may subside and disappear after until the process starts all over again with a new anomaly-crisis-paradigm shift into a cyclic process.
The revolution stage is also where the crisis occurs. When the anomalies present undermine the basic assumptions of a paradigm and attempt to remove the anomaly fail, then a crisis develops (Kuhn, 91). As a result, the rules that served as a guide for the paradigm are relaxed, allowing for more ideas which can challenge the existing paradigm to be developed. There will be several competing theories during the crisis, with the one that is able to gain support of the majority of the scientific community due to its simplicity or ability to solve a social need being accepted as the new established paradigm.
The scientific revolution stage is very important in the emergence of a new paradigm. It is characterized by changes in worldview and incommensurability. During the revolutionary period, changes in worldview where scientific work is being done will exist. When the paradigms change, the world will change as well (Kuhn, 111). These worldviews incorporate background beliefs and experiences that one has. According to Kuhn, scientific revolutions are like a gestalt switch because people see different things while under the influence of different paradigms. How someone perceives the world, is how they will build their interpretation of the world which can switch from one paradigm to another without having to change the actual data. Instead, the paradigm shift allows for new interpretations to emerge. Kuhn explains the gestalt switch through the duck-rabbit illustration. In this illustration, one can sometimes see a duck and other times a rabbit. However, when one sees an image of a duck, it blocks their view from seeing a rabbit (Kuhn, 85). The same thing occurs during a paradigm shift. During the scientific revolution (paradigm shift), one would drop one conceptual framework and favor another conceptual framework. As a result, the goals of science, which are problem solving, will change when the paradigms also changes. Therefore, after a revolution, scientists will be working with a different worldview and a different perspective.
During the scientific revolution, paradigms are incommensurable because they are independent (non-cumulative) therefore they can’t be compared based on logic or accuracy (Kuhn, 103). The paradigms are independent because the paradigms tend to change suddenly and it’s difficult to build on prior knowledge. There are three types of incommensurability: Observationality, methodologically and semantically. Observationality is when scientists see different things. An illustration of this is optical illusions where it observations lead to two or more varying perceptions of the same thing. There aren’t any neutral observations and there are no unbiased observations. As a result, observational evidence can’t be used to decide between paradigms. Methodological is the idea that there are no common standards, methods or evaluations due to the fact that these standards, methods or evaluations change as paradigms change. Semantics occurs when different paradigms use the same language in varying ways. This makes it difficult to compare theories because the languages from theories of different paradigms are not fully inter-translatable (Bird 47).
According to Thomas Kuhn, intellectual progress occurs through stages of development. Through this view, he surmised that the progression of science only exists at the problem solving stage. According to Kuhn, the development of science has alternating normal and revolutionary phases. I agree with Kuhn’s views because during different scientific periods, different paradigms held sway with the way researchers thought; since they could be able to explain puzzles that arose answering the questions of the researchers. As the puzzle changed, so did the successive paradigms (Kuhn, 26). This, in my opinion, was better than Popper’s falsification method, whereby when a theory is able to survive attempts to refute it, it becomes more corroborated. This in turn causes the theory to become more reliable as a guide of predicting future events. The problem solving feature was important because the superior paradigm was able to solve the puzzles found in the old paradigm.
Popper thought that science is characterized by a permanent openness. According to Popper, there is, and should be, a permanent critical science. This means that everything is open to question even the fundamental ideas of the paradigm. Therefore, a scientist should be permanently open minded about all issues even the basic issues. According to Popper, science proceeds through a single stream of conjecture and refutation, the rules of logic govern the process by which science proceeds. Popper objected to Kuhn’s views by stating that the belief in paradigms was inconsistent especially in its definition of verifiability, he used the example of David Hume, who had demonstrated that verification are impossible through this test of experience. In his view of the history of science, scientists will accept a dominant paradigm until new anomalies arise i.e. the puzzle changes. When this happens, the scientists will question the basis of the paradigm, leading to the emergence of new theories. These theories challenge the dominant theory and eventually, one of the theories becomes the newly accepted paradigm. This process can then occur again and become a cyclic process.
Kuhn’s view of progress depended on his concept of the paradigm. Scientific theories and research have to occur within a paradigm, since the world is too huge and complex to be explored in a random manner (Kuhn, 34). Within each dominant paradigm, scientists will be able to differentiate relevant from irrelevant facts and be able to build on previous research. Researchers who veer off from the parameters of the existing paradigm are thus said to be engaging in superstition. Thus, his concept of paradigm was a rejection of the positivistic notion of the progress of knowledge. This positivism outlook says that science has simply progressed by stages which are usually based on observations that are deemed neutral. He believed in the progress of science over time which has more of a matter-concerning solving of problems under the current paradigm as compared to the past one than a question of approaching or even achieving the real truth (Andersen et al., 56).
In response to Karl Popper, Kuhn argues that scientific progress is not a process of trying to falsify conjectures. Scientists don’t try to falsify conjectures through tests since puzzle solving occurs within the paradigm framework while working with a normal science. During the revolutionary period, anomalies occur which leads to criticisms that in turn present a new paradigm that answer the anomalies of the old paradigm (Andersen et al., 33). When one of the new approaches become successful at explaining the anomaly then a paradigm shift occurs, as the newly introduced paradigm was able to solve the existing crisis. This usually constitutes the core of the scientific revolution.
Kuhn and Popper have their own views of how science progresses. Popper believes in constantly criticizing hypotheses while Kuhn believes that there should be breaks in between (Jarvie et al., 12). By constantly offering criticism, it is hard to tell how far along one has come and if progression has occurred already. In the process of science, normal science occurs twice because Kuhn wants a thorough examination of the science before and after the revolution. The revolution is the critical stage in the scientific progression because by that time, it has undergone criticisms and it is the stage before presenting a new paradigm. Through his use of the incommensurability thesis, Kuhn was able to disprove that the paradigm was objective in nature, proving that truth is relative to the paradigm (Dilworth, 27). Furthermore, Kuhn also believed in the notion of scientific progress over time. This view of science was mainly concerned with solving more problems and anomalies under the current paradigms as compared to the past ones. Thus, he was able to address his critics.
In Kuhn’s view, it is clear that the scientific revolution can progress in a substantive way. Scientific progression will always occur in steps to reach a final goal. It is important to incorporate criticisms to ensure validity and accuracy. There is a lot of questions out there about science and I believe that through Kuhn’s scientific revolution, it allows for the questions to be answered leading to progression. Through his scientific revolution, Kuhn claims that the concept of truth should then be dispensed and replaced by successful problem solving within a paradigm as there can be no absolute truth only paradigms of today which form the context for the ongoing research and paradigms of the past, which are translated by philosophers of science and historians.
Work Cited
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