Thomas Kuhn 's The Structure Of Scientific Revolutions

Lisa Jardine’s Ingenious Pursuits: Building the Scientific Revolution provides a comprehensive breakdown of the discoveries that defined the Scientific Revolution and the history behind them. The story of the scientific revolution truly begins with a separation between the Catholic Church and the denizens of Europe brought on by the Protestant Reformation. This separation led directly to the questioning of the church and what they deemed to be true. The growing suspicion of the church applied not only to the politics and religious views but the scientific “facts” the church was built upon. The suspicion of these scientific facts quickly grew to an open challenging of these facts, The Scientific Revolution. The Scientific Revolution is something we have all studied in our grade school years and the discoveries of people such as Isaac Newton and Galileo Galilei are well documented and arguably common knowledge but Jardine’s book Ingenious Pursuits encapsulates the scientific revolution in a new light. Jardine accomplishes this by telling the stories of some of the greatest achievements of the Scientific Revolution. These stories reveal the collaborations of some of histories most brilliant minds as well as the secrecy amongst them and uncover the motives that fueled many of these accomplishments.

The Scientific Revolution was one of the most revolutionary time periods in human history, because the Catholic Church was tested and the human race was enlighten. Also, during this specific revolution specific scientists and enlighten thinkers contributed heavily to the advancement of human history. This period is explained as modern methods of scientific inquiry being established, and associated with great discoveries of the first modern scientists (Scientific Revolution, n.d.). To truly understand how revolutionary the Scientific Revolution was, the key points should be studied and elaborated. This paper will dive into the major scientist and philosopher during this revolutionary time, and deliver the battle to free minds between the church and science.

One of the first scientific breakthroughs during this time period was the development of Isaac Newton’s famous Laws of Motion. One of the most renowned laws established by Newton was the theory that “every body continues in its state of rest . . . unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed upon it” (Newton). What Newton achieved, which most scientists at the time had not, was conveying a scientific message to the common people. These people were either uneducated or not experts in the field that Newton was studying. When Newton produced these law, these people understood what he was trying to convey to them which would ultimately get the population more involved in science. From a literature standpoint, Mary Shelly represented the Scientific Revolution through her novel Frankenstein about a young scientist who is terrorized by his own creation of a monster using science. Throughout the book, Shelly makes several references to the Scientific Revolution such as “My father was not scientific, and I was left to struggle with a child's blindness, added to a student's thirst for knowledge” (Shelly 21). Here, the author shows how a new generation of students were excited about the developments of science and how they too could make a difference. By getting involved, such as the main character did, this new generation made

Chapter 16 is an introduction to the scientific revolution. Philosophy, astronomy, mechanics, and mathematics are some of the subjects that made the revolution historical. Copernicus is one of the scientists talked about in this chapter. He stated that the Earth moved around the sun just like all the other planets in our solar system. Newton was also a prodigious astronomer, who followed in Copernicus’s footsteps and made a discovery that changed the face of science. Newton published his work on the laws of gravity which have been studied throughout history and is still taught today. Galileo was also another world renowned Astronomer, who found there were other geographical features on planets and the moon. Maria Merian one of the very few

Thomas Khun begins his first essay by affirming that every scientific community needs to practice trade with a set of received beliefs. These beliefs configure the infrastructure of the “educational initiation that prepares and licenses the student for professional practice.” A system of “beliefs is very important as the “rigorous and rigid” education aids in confirming that the presented beliefs are engraved into the students’ minds. Scientists are defensive over what they view the world to be like; and what “beliefs” they hold to be true. As a result, “normal science” will hesitate to accept unconventional beliefs that oppose its foundations. Therefore, experimentation is not about unveiling the unrevealed, rather it is "a strenuous and devoted

The scientific revolution

He also states that “The man who is striving to solve a problem defined by existing knowledge and technique is not... just looking around. He knows what he wants to achieve, and he designs his instruments and directs his thoughts accordingly” (Kuhn 8). By following the rules to conduct a scientific experiment, Man must not rely on past scientific breakthroughs as they can change over time. Instead Men must find new scientific breakthroughs for a better understanding of the world around them. Once there is a need for a paradigm shift, it is vital for Men to reject an old paradigm and focus on the new one. In order to solve the anomalies created by the shift, men create new rules and principals that can define it. Thus creating a new era of scientific understanding and being able to move forward from the old

With time passing by, humanity is obligated to change and adapt to its surroundings in order to maintain a healthy society. Naturally, evolution will cause a gradual development, changing something from its primitive, simple form into its more complex and able form. The common believe is that our biological state is the only entity prone to these alterations, but it is evident that our mindset and point of views are also subject to change by such process. Revolutions, defined as fundamental changes in the ways of thinking about or of visualizing something , could be applied to different aspects of society such as politics, social structures, entertainment, fine arts and science. Moreover, a scientific revolution is known to merge different

There are terms used in which their given definitions lack clarification and consistency. His definition of paradigm, as defined in section II for example, essentially states that it is a theory that is unique and intriguing enough to attract enough supporters and that it leaves a significant amount of questions (P.O.S. 490). Later on in the section, he defines it simply as a theory that “seems better than its competitors” (Kuhn – P.O.S 491). Kuhn describes in section III, three ‘foci’ of normal science. The first focus is a presentation of facts that through normal science, has been determined to describe something’s nature within the paradigm (P.O.S. 492). However, just a few paragraphs later Kuhn admits that in reality, there are very few instances when a paradigm can actually be compared with nature (P.O.S. 493). This presents an issue in the applicability of his theory especially in the more theoretical or mathematical sciences. In this sense, normal science cannot work in these disciplines without making often inexact and unobservable estimations within which to work with (P.O.S. 493). This defect is emphasized by Popper, who stresses the use of deductive reasoning. Deductive reasoning states that if the premises are true, then the conclusion must be true; consequently, if the conclusion is true, then the premises must be true. Because of this, any conclusion drawn from the use

In the Scientific Revolution, “there occurred a shift in humans ' thinking from the medieval emphasis on God 's eternal unchanging world, which governed people, the universe, and nature, to an approach that defined knowledge and understanding as derived from the immutable laws of nature independent of received truth.” Scientists changed the way people think about the world. The gears of the revolution began to turn when Copernicus questioned the geocentric theory, developing his theory of heliocentrism. Many scientists use the method of beginning with a question, experimenting, then falsifying the previous theory. This method of thinking became what is now known as the scientific method. Scientists impacted all fields of science from cosmology to biology. The fields of mathematics, chemistry, and medicine were drastically improved because of the scientists in their fields who discovered new concepts to propell the movement. In all three fields, there was a thirst for understanding and organization that was answered by the revolutionary new concepts. For chemistry, it was the development of the scientific method, for mathematics, it was the organization of the universe, and for medicine, it was the movement towards clinical practices.

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.

What I understand know, after reading Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1996) was that his paradigm about discipline was different from mine. In fact, our paradigms were what Kuhn (1996) describes as incommensurable. The idea of incommensurability accounts for the different way that my commander and I viewed the world (Kuhn, 1996). Our paradigms about discipline were so different that we could not even really have a conversation about it without one of us getting angry or frustrated. At the time I did not understand this concept, and it left me confused about how he could approach a situation in a way that I viewed as harsh and unfair.

To begin, Kuhn’s model addresses how scientists arrive at new knowledge from periodic revolutions or “paradigm shifts.” “Normal science” is research based on achievements where established rules and standards leave little disagreement among practitioners concerning the fundamentals. Consequently, problem solving uses a predetermined solution that generally fails to account for anomalies. Scientists become aware of this, yet they hold on to the existing theory. This continues until the theory weakens and other possibilities are considered. At a given point, crisis occurs which might initiate a scientific revolution. Once the revolution occurs, the new paradigm often requires rewriting texts on the subject area.

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