Sunday, December 21, 2014
This is mainly a book review by Bob Reuschlein of:
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn (1962, 1972)
#1. Kuhn defines a scientific revolution as a paradigm shift in a scientific field.
#2. Paradigm shifts change the worldview in a field of science. (Kuhn)
#3. Kuhn is a historian of science and works primarily in the physical sciences.
#4. Kuhn says a new theory "requires the reconstruction of prior theory and re-evaluation of prior fact, an intrinsically revolutionary process that is seldom completed by a single" person "and never overnight."
#5. "History suggests that the road to a firm research consensus is very arduous." (Kuhn)
#6. "it remains an open question what parts of social science have yet acquired such paradigms at all." (Kuhn)
#7. "In the absence of a paradigm or some candidate for paradigm, all of the facts that could possibly pertain to the development of a given science are likely to seem equally relevant. As a result, early fact-gathering is a far more nearly random activity than the one that subsequent scientific development makes familiar." (Kuhn)
#8 "Therefore, at times of revolution, when the normal-scientific tradition changes, the scientists perception of his environment must be re-educated – in some familiar situations he" or she "must learn to see a new gestalt." (Kuhn)
#9 "schools guided by different paradigms are always slightly at cross-purposes." (Kuhn)
#10 "what a person sees depends both on what a person looks at and also upon what a person's previous visual-conceptual experience has taught him or her to see." (Kuhn)
Example of a paradigm shift: https://www.academia.edu/4044446/EMPIRE_ECONOMICS_Peer_Review_AWARD
Facts documenting this paradigm shift:
https://www.academia.edu/4044456/SUMMARY_Military_DisEconomics_HighAccuracy13
Dr. Bob Reuschlein, Dr. Peace
bobreuschlein@gmail.com,
www.realeconomy.com,
608-230-6640