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History
Thomas Kuhn born July 18, 1922 - Jun 17, 1996, was an American physicist historian and philosopher of science, where the idea that science is critical is mostly an illusion. He claims that science isn't very critical at all, but only at specific moments in history where science becomes critical. If we accept that science is mostly critical, we are making the exception the rule. -
more details
When he studied science, he didn't see a chaotic succession of events, instead he saw a pattern of alterating phases of different kinds of science in a standard way throughout history. Kuhn said that although we are critical, we tend to be not critical about other new theories or ideas, that we simply take for granted that we already know something. -
The Pre-Paradigmatic Phase
There are no shared concepts or methods, there may be some ideas, but no unifying belief or method. Scientists do different kinds of measurements and what concepts are worth investigating, nor is the technical vocabulary similar. It tends to be biased and not shared evenly. This is not a productive stage, and everyone is starting from scratch. -
Normal Science
It never returns to the first phase. We always return to it, and it is here most of the time. This is in a paradigm phase, where all theories and concepts are taken for granted, and all research is directly related to help prove that discipline. Scientists don't want to be critical about the paradigm. This phase is very good to get details about a discipline and progress can be made. -
Crisis:
This occurs many times, either returns to normal science or revolution. Usually an anomaly occurs, or a problem within the paradigm that scientists are presented, but unable to solve. Things that are not explained are ignored, but if they pile up too much, confidence can be shattered among the scientists. They start doubting their own paradigm. They start to think out of the box and create new theories. -
Scientific Revolution
Can become normal science, a new theory emerges, and abandons the old paradigm. This phase must be replaced with a new theory or a shift in order for it to occur. If there is no new theory to replace the old one, the crisis stage continues until something does. -
Death
day of death -
references
John Naughton, Thomas Kuhn: the man who changed the way the world looked at science, The Guardian, Aug 2012 -
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