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Scientific Revolution
The term paradigm shift refers to the process by which scientists learn to perceive the world differently. “When the transition [from one paradigm to another] is complete,” Kuhn writes, “the profession will have changed its views of the field, its methods, and its goals.” In other words, scientists begin to view the world from a fresh perspective, asking new questions and using new methods to find answers.
Paradigm Shift Quotes in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
The The Structure of Scientific Revolutions quotes below are all either spoken by Paradigm Shift or refer to Paradigm Shift. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 8 Quotes
When acute, this situation is sometimes recognized by the scientists involved. Copernicus complained that in his day astronomers were so “inconsistent in these [astronomical] investigations . . . that they cannot even explain or observe the constant length of the seasonal year.” “With them,” he continued, “it is as though an artist were to gather the hands, feet, head and other members for his images from diverse models, each part excellently drawn, but not related to a single body, and since they in no way match each other, the result would be monster rather than man.” Einstein, restricted by current usage to less florid language, wrote only, “It was as if the ground had been pulled out from under one, with no firm foundation to be seen anywhere, upon which one could have built.”
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To demonstrate just how profoundly anomalies affect scientists, Kuhn relies on testimony from two such scientists themselves: Nicolaus Copernicus, who discovered that Earth rotated around the sun (and not the other way around), and Albert Einstein, who linked space to time with his theory of relativity. Copernicus’s statement demonstrates the difficulty of maintaining scientific community in moments of crisis: if normal science is usually a jigsaw puzzle, by Copernicus’ time, the puzzle pieces of astronomy “in no way match[ed] each other,” and scientists were struggling to recreate a picture that no longer cohered. Copernicus therefore makes clear the impossibility of Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat. Molestiae earum eum. Libero sit beatae. At a deserunt. Sint aperiam consequatur. Minima porro perferendis. Sit neque odit. Tenetur qui dignissimos. Qui et ut. Voluptate labore corporis. Hic tempore laborum
The marks on paper that were first seen as a bird are now seen as an antelope, or vice versa. That parallel can be misleading. […] the scientist does not preserve the gestalt subject’s freedom to switch back and forth between ways of seeing. Nevertheless, the switch of gestalt, particularly because it is today so familiar, is a useful elementary prototype for what occurs in full-scale paradigm shift.
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If the jigsaw puzzle is a useful symbol for normal science, Kuhn’s gestalt drawing (also commonly called a Rorschach test) is a perfect tool to make sense of a paradigm shift. Held horizontally, some squiggles on a piece of paper might look quite clearly like a bird; but if one flips that same paper vertically, and all of a sudden, the very same squiggles become an antelope. That change in vision—that new “gestalt,” or angle from which to view the world—is a crucial part of a paradigm shift. For example, Kuhn discusses how Aristotle and Galileo could look at a Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat. Molestiae earum eum. Libero sit beatae. At a deserunt. Sint aperiam consequatur. Minima porro perferendis. Sit neque odit. Tenetur qui dignissimos. Qui et ut. Voluptate labore corporis. Hic tempore laborum. Nisi quia ea. Quia soluta itaque. Deleniti nisi earum. Ad tenetu
Chapter 10 Quotes
Examining the record of past research from the vantage of contemporary historiography, the historian of science may be tempted to exclaim that when paradigms change, the world itself changes with them. Led by a new paradigm, scientists adopt new instruments and look in new places. Even more important, during revolutions scientists see new and different things when looking with familiar instruments in places they have looked before. […] In so far as their only recourse to that world is through what they see and do, we may want to say that after a revolution scientists are responding to a different world.
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For much of his book, Kuhn has hinted at the personal, everyday implications scientific revolutions have for the scientists who live through them. In this passage, Kuhn specifies why scientific revolutions are just as life-altering as political ones; just as a change in governments has profound effects on citizens’ daily lives, Kuhn argues that “when paradigms change, the world changes with them.” On the one hand, a paradigm shift makes scientists rethink even the tools and techniques they use most routinely—as Kuhn puts it, scientists start to “see new and different things when looking with familiar instruments in places they Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat.
Looking at the moon, the convert to Copernicanism does not say, “I used to see a planet, but now I see a satellite.” That locution would imply a sense in which the Ptolemaic system had once been correct. Instead, a convert to the new astronomy says, “I once took the moon to be (or saw the moon as) a planet, but I was mistaken.”
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Here, Kuhn articulates how the authentic experience of paradigm shift—in which scientists choose one arbitrary set of beliefs over another—is converted into the linear, simplistic narrative presented by textbooks. To admit that a past model “had once been correct,” scientists would need to admit that their own paradigm could one day be similarly discounted. Instead, scientists must dismiss their past beliefs as mistaken rather than risk reckoning with the fact that science may never arrive at one stable, objective conclusion. As Kuhn has earlier discussed, some engineers use the Ptolemaic model of the universe even to this day; this fact Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dic
Chapter 12 Quotes
Though a generation is sometimes required to effect the change, scientific communities have again and again been converted to new paradigms. Furthermore, these conversions occur not despite the fact that scientists are human but because they are.
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As he brings his argument to a close, Kuhn turns his attention to the ways in which scientists ultimately do accept new paradigms. Through effective persuasion and through community pressure, large groups of experts are able to give up even their most deeply held beliefs. There are two important things to note in Kuhn’s description of this shift: the first is that here and elsewhere, he describes this shift as a “conversion,” testifying both to the deeply personal and almost spiritual nature of such a change. But even more strikingly, Kuhn—who has spent much of his book pointing out all Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est.
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Paradigm Shift Term Timeline in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
The timeline below shows where the term Paradigm Shift appears in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 6. Anomaly and the Emergence of Scientific Discovery
Kuhn argues that a paradigm shift begins with an “anomaly”: some case or instance in which the rules of the paradigm...
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Lavoisier’s discovery of oxygen initiated a paradigm shift . But Kuhn is careful to point out that Lavoisier had long been skeptical of...
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Chapter 8. The Response to Crisis
Moreover, as Kuhn insists, a true paradigm shift is not cumulative; instead, it requires scientists to go back to basics. To illustrate this...
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Chapter 10. Revolutions as Changes of World View
...and the particular normal-scientific tradition that the student has been trained to pursue.” When a paradigm shift occurs, therefore, part of the student’s world changes.
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...theory of perception to describe why this is the case. Kuhn thus hopes for a paradigm shift in both psychology and philosophy that would help him explain this non-fixed, non-neutral form of...
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...and family structures in general. Paradigms do not determine single facts or experiences, and so paradigm shift s affect many ideas and observations at once.
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Chapter 12. The Resolution of Revolutions
But rather than seeing this miscommunication as evidence of scientists’ stubbornness, Kuhn believes that a paradigm shift is “a conversion experience that cannot be forced.” If normal science is effective because it...
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Chapter 13. Progress through Revolutions
...for moments of crisis (and subsequent scientific revolutions), this textbook-based education also helps to make paradigm shift s possible. However, it does not necessarily equip students to think outside the box in...
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Postscript - 1969
...pre-paradigm periods, scientific communities share some basic ideas and beliefs. What really changes in a paradigm shift is that the shared beliefs become more specific—they offer more “challenging puzzles” and supply better...
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...most demonstrate the need for Kuhn’s argument. Similarly, he acknowledges that the crises that start paradigm shift s may be introduced from other disciplines or subgroups.
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