The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
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The Structure of Scientific Revolutions description
There's a "Frank & Ernest" comic strip showing a chick breaking out of its shell, looking around, and saying, "Oh, wow! Paradigm shift!" Blame the late Thomas Kuhn. Few indeed are the philosophers or historians influential enough to make it into the funny papers, but Kuhn is one. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is indeed a paradigmatic work in the history of science. Kuhn's use of terms such as "paradigm shift" and "normal science," his ideas of how scientists move from disdain through doubt to acceptance of a new theory, his stress on social and psychological factors in science--all have had profound effects on historians, scientists, philosophers, critics, writers, business gurus, and even the cartoonist in the street. Some scientists (such as Steven Weinberg and Ernst Mayr) are profoundly irritated by Kuhn, especially by the doubts he casts--or the way his work has been used to cast doubt--on the idea of scientific progress. Yet it has been said that the acceptance of plate tectonics in the 1960s, for instance, was sped by geologists' reluctance to be on the downside of a paradigm shift. Even Weinberg has said that "Structure has had a wider influence than any other book on the history of science." As one of Kuhn's obituaries noted, "We all live in a post-Kuhnian age." --Mary Ellen Curtin |
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The Structure of Scientific Revolutions Customer Reviews
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♥♥♥♥♥ |
The Paradigm Shift Revolution
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Kuhn's theory has been met with lavish praise, nuanced criticism, vitriol and dismissal. This polemical book challenges assumptions about the way science has worked, and delineates the pattern of scientific progress in terms of changing patterns and modes of thought: normal (puzzle-solving) science, the build up of anomalies, and the introduction of new paradigms. Distilled to its essence, Kuhn argues that scientific study is not immune from the human intricacies that plague other fields of scholarship.
My major critiques are as follows:
1.) Many defenders of science as an endeavor dismiss Kuhn. I think Kuhn gives science too much credit. Kuhn was trained as a scientist, and is obviously aware of the great contributions that science has given to society, but he ignores the fact that science interlopes with other parts of society. It is not totally self-contained but has borrowed ideas from revolutions in other realms, such as the enlightenment.
2.) He sometimes falls into the trap ahistorical timelessness when discussing the notion that knowledge is not accumulated, but rather gestalt shifts govern revolution.
3.) He speaks in such vague language that its difficult to tease apart any real meaning. Such is the nature of any theoretical approach, I suppose. For example, there are branches of scientific study that do just accumulate knowledge, he ignores them and paints with broad strokes. In the first few chapters he explains that he's not talking about applied science, but in doing so avoids having to address technological advances spurring scientific change (see PCR technology, DNA sequencing etc.)
Kuhn's argument has its deficiencies but it provides a lens through which to view scientific advancement. I cringe at attempts to use Kuhn to attack science as a study or ridicule it. Science has no monopoly on truth, but it happens to be an extremely important endeavor. None of this was Kuhn's intent. He was just trying to describe his observations. Apparently he did something right because its still being cited, published, and reviewed into the 21st century. |
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