Set of slides from the Kuhn Lesson

1. Kuhn and the structures of Scientific Revolutions

2. I can, if the worst comes to the worst, still realize
that the Good Lord may have created a world in which
there are no natural laws. In short, a chaos. But that
there should be statistical laws with definite solutions,
i.e. laws which compel the Good Lord to throw the dice
in each individual case, I find highly disagreeable.
Albert Einstein

3.  “Under normal conditions the research scientist
is not an innovator but a solver of puzzles, and the
puzzles upon which he concentrates are just those
which he believes can be both stated and solved
within the existing scientific tradition.”
 “It is, I think, particularly in periods of
acknowledged crisis that scientists have turned to
philosophical analysis as a device for unlocking
the riddles of their field. Scientists have not
generally needed or wanted to be philosophers.”

4.  “Normal science does not aim at novelties of fact
or theory and, when successful, finds none.”
 “What occurs during a scientific revolution is not
fully reducible to a reinterpretation of individual
and stable data.”
 “Rather than being an interpreter, the scientist
who embraces a new paradigm is like the man
wearing inverting lenses.”

5.  What are some of the things that struck you about the
readings this week?
 What are some of the questions you have?

6.  A paradigm is a “map” that delineates the area of
exploration within a field of scientific inquiry
 A paradigm informs scientists about the entities that
nature does and does not contain
 A paradigm dictates appropriate procedures, methods and
standards are used in the map-making
 Paradigms serve as a context for the socialization of
scientists
 Paradigms provide the context for the derivation of
scientific laws so that scientists do not have to revisit or
justify first principles every time they undertake research
(the cumulative growth of knowledge in the context of a
paradigm)
 Paradigm is a confirmation of the “rules of the game”

7.  The rules of the paradigm provide the foundation
upon which the scientific community is built
 During times of stability knowledge grows as the world
becomes a little more comprehensible
 When anomalies are encountered discussion and
experiments become plentiful as scientists attempt to
accommodate the anomalies
 If the anomalies cannot be accounted through the
modification of the paradigm then the paradigm
begins to crumble while others start to build a new
paradigm among the ruins

8.  Not all anomalies will lead to a paradigm shift
 A paradigm shift or scientific revolution occurs when
the existing paradigm no longer adequately functions
“Like the choice between competing political
institutions, that between competing paradigms
prove to be a choice between incompatible modes
of community life.”

9.  These incompatible modes of community life force the
community of scientists to see the world in a very
different way
“Its as if the professional community had been
suddenly transported to another planet where
familiar objects are seen in a different light and
are joined by unfamiliar ones.”

10.  Paradigm shifts are like political revolutions where the
are many splinter groups vying for power and
competing with one another
 Eventually one paradigm wins out as it accounts for
and anticipates phenomenon its predecessor did as
well as explaining the anomalies
 This is a stressful period

11.  How are the social sciences different from physical and
natural sciences?
 Are there paradigms in the social sciences in the way
in which Kuhn describes them?
 What are some of the things we can learn from Kuhn
that are helpful not only in understanding how
knowledge changes but the larger context in which it is
embedded within?