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Beginnings of Thomas Kuhn
Born in Ohio, but moving to New York in adolescence, attended Harvard in 1940 studying Physics. Finishing his degree early to help with the Allied war effort during World War II, Kuhn helped developed countermeasures to enemy radar. After the war, Kuhn returned to Harvard but became more interested in scientific philosophy rather than Physics. Thus, exploration into normal science, the scientific method, and the concepts of paradigm shifts began. -
Kuhn speaks at Lowell Lectures
Invited to speak, Kuhn decrees that scientists operate under the notion of an agreed base of evidence until that evidence is disproved or no longer agreed upon, thus inciting a revolution and paradigm shift. Kuhn also emphasized that science was not an accumulation of knowledge at a slow rate as history presented. A crisis could impact normal science immediately, in which scientists would have to scramble to understand
Kuhn's Paradigm Shift Theory -
Publishes The Copernican Revolution
Supporting his philosophy that science is fluid and old seemingly fundamental truths can be disproved and implemented with new. This book heavily relays the story of how arguably one of the most famous paradigm shifts in history was Nicolaus Copernicus disproving the unquestioned and accepted Geocentric theory and confirming Heliocentric theory; how the Earth and other planets revolve around the Sun. This paradigm shift revolutionized scientific method forever and proved Kuhn's theory -
Publishes The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
Most famous of his work, American philosophical scientist, Thomas Kuhn questioned 'normal science' and elaborated on the need for paradigm shift which would replace old methods and ways of thinking with new observable evidence generated from crisis and disproving rudimentary theories. "Kuhn held that the historical process of science is divided into three stages: a “normal” stage, followed by “crisis” and then “revolutionary” stages." ("'The Structure of Scientific Revolutions' at Fifty")
