Scientific Structures

Kuhn defines “normal science” as research firmly based upon one or more past scientific achievements achieves that some particular scientific community acknowledges for a time as supplying the foundation for its further practice.” He later referred to achievements sharing these two characteristics as “paradigms”. Bawazer’s discussion very well could be the dawning of a new scientific paradigm as discussed by Kuhn is his essay. Kuhn goes on to state, “Men whose research is based on shared paradigms are committed to the same rules and standards for scientific practice. That commitment and the apparent consensus it produces are prerequisites for normal science, i.e., for the genesis and continuation of a particular research tradition” (900). Clearly, the research studies Luke Bawazer’s has conducted could definitely qualify as a new scientific paradigm discussed by Kuhn. Other examples that may qualify as new scientific paradigm are highlighted in Bawazer’s Tedtalk video such as the work of Joe Davis and colleagues, who inserted the gene into bacteria to produce a functioning bacteria radio. Another example of this type of technology highlighted in the video by Angela Belcher, shows that viruses can be used to build batteries and solar cells. No doubt, this definitely the dawning of a new scientific

According to Kuhn, science has to develop prior assumptions that reevaluate prior facts before it acquires its first universally received paradigm. An example from our “Case History on the Concept of Electrical Charge” is the discoveries of Gilbert and Cabeo. Gilberts experiment lead him to believe that the effluvium emitted by an excited electric acts directly on the body rather than acting indirectly by setting un an air current that moves the body. But after Cabeo looked at Gilberts work he went to conclude a different hypothesis, which was that his observation that objects sometimes rebound or are repelled by rubbed “electrics” is that if there were no air around the electric, it could not attract the objects when rubbed. Cabeo’s hypothesis

The goal of science as a collective institution is to produce more and more accurate explanations of how the natural world works, what its components are, and how the world has become what it is today. The scientific community works toward these explanations through a systematic organization of knowledge about the material universe. It is the principle concern of science to frame theories and discover patterns of relations among an incredible amount of data in such a way that a small number of principles can explain a larger amount of propositions concerning these phenomena. The scientific community progresses by detecting

Throughout The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas S. Kuhn goes over a common problem that often exists among science, the problem of relativity in conformation with Kuhn’s concept of a paradigm. Many viewed Kuhn’s reply to charges of relativism as mundane, and that his reply may be inadequate. I feel his reply is adequate in the sense that Kuhn accounts for the fact that different people may have different perceptions of reality and that competing viewpoints may both be valid. Kuhn argues that both the skeptic and the relativist are wrong. Potentially, it could be said that Kuhn does not feel that progress in the field of science is a relative concept. However mainly the argument is that Kuhn

Nursing Science Quarterly, 18:3, July 2005 and conversion. According to Kuhn, scientific knowledge is generated by preparadigm inquiry, ultimately leading to the endpoint of a defined paradigm, or a period of normal science. The scientific community defines the standards, beliefs, laws, and theory from which all scientists are to conduct themselves. During a

The universal principle that underlines all work conducted in the field of science is that the knowledge yielded from scientific discovery can never be considered to be indisputable truth as it is derived solely from the human perspective of the world and, to the greater extent, the tangible universe. As a result, theories brought forward that are considered to be factual one day can be justly discarded the next if enough evidence is produced to form a realised contradiction. It is due to this, therefore, that science holds great authority over how society is able to perceive its surroundings and consequently, how it allows human society to progress.

In Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolution, he presents that science is a cycle that has a paradigm, which begins with a period of normal science, a crisis, revolution, then a paradigm change.

From Aristotle, who introduced to us the roots of what we now call physics, psychology, astronomy, chemistry, and more; to Francis Bacon, credited with having devised scientific method—a means by which gather facts and make reliable assertions about objects of study; to Rene Descartes, who emphasized the importance of considering first principles in research; to Karl Popper, or Thomas Kuhn, who forced us to consider the philosophical as much as the social grounds on which scientific claims of knowledge

Kuhn himself used the term rather loosely in his landmark book “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”, referring to either the laws and principles that govern scientific inquiry within a specific field or just a collection of landmark works showcasing a common body of beliefs. Although one could consider arguing that the Copernican revolution (but definitely not Copernicus himself) started the shift away from deriving scientific knowledge from scripture and thus he started a paradigm shift in the former sense, those implications are fairly removed from Copernicus himself. As such, arguing whether he initiated a paradigm shift in the latter sense is a more meaningful

One possible interpretation of Kuhn’s assertion that scientists work in a different world, post scientific revolution, could be explained through literally interpreting Kuhn’s usage of the word “world” to mean a different plane of existence altogether. During his discussion of paradigms and their effects on worldview, Kuhn states that “during revolutions, scientists see new and different things when looking with familiar instruments in places they have looked before. It is rather as if the professional community had been suddenly transported to another planet where familiar objects are seen in a different light” (Kuhn 111). The example Kuhn provides on the discovery of Uranus illustrates this point; the planet now known as Uranus had been observed to be, on separate occasions,

The standard paradigm, the currently accept concept and thought pattern, is interpreted as pre-science. Until this model no longer holds true for all observations in relation to its theory, it remains as the normal science. When

In this essay I attempt to answer the following two questions: What is Karl Popper’s view of science? Do I feel that Thomas Kuhn makes important points against it? The two articles that I make reference to are "Science: Conjectures and Refutations" by Karl Popper and "Logic of Discovery or Psychology of Research?" by Thomas Kuhn.

Popper and Kuhn held differing views on the nature of scientific progress. As seen in Popper’s falsification theory, he held that theories can never be proved only disproved or falsified. Once a theory is proved false we move on to the next. Kuhn, on the other, hand argued a new paradigm may solve puzzles better than the old one but you cannot describe the old science as false. Both seem to share the Kantian idea that the really real, independently existing world is completely unknowable. Kuhn further asserts that the empirical world, which is knowable, is partly constructed by our categories and concepts. The fundamental difference in their views are best stated in Kuhn’s own words, “A very different approach to this whole network of problems has been developed by Karl R. Popper who denies the existence of any verification procedures at all. Instead he emphasizes the importance of falsification, i.e., of the test that, because its outcome is negative, necessitates the rejection of an established theory. Clearly, the role thus attributed to falsification is much like the one this essay assigns to anomalous experiences, i.e., to experiences that, by evoking crisis, prepare the way for a new theory. Nevertheless, anomalous experiences may not be identified with falsifying ones.”(Kuhn, 145) As seen by this passage, the fundamental difference between Popper and Kuhn is that Popper disregards “verification” and Kuhn asserts that “falsification” only takes place once a

The world of science, as we know it today, is a difficult subject to grasp. So many new ideas are present and these new ideas are not interchangeable. Some parts do work together although as a whole they don’t fully coincide with each other. The three basic ideas that science is now based upon come from Newton, Einstein, and Hawking. I call these ideas/theories “new” based on what I classify the state of the scientific community of today. After looking at what is going on in science, it is clear to me that the scientific world is in a crisis state. According to Kuhn, a crisis state is when science is in the middle of choosing a particular paradigm to work under. For scientists, there is a general theme

We live in a strange and puzzling world. Despite the exponential growth of knowledge in the past century, we are faced by a baffling multitude of conflicting ideas. The mass of conflicting ideas causes the replacement of knowledge, as one that was previously believed to be true gets replace by new idea. This is accelerated by the rapid development of technology to allow new investigations into knowledge within the areas of human and natural sciences. Knowledge in the human sciences has been replaced for decades as new discoveries by the increased study of humans, and travel has caused the discarding of a vast array of theories. The development of