![]() ![]() ![]() When observing the movements of the planets, Copernicus noted the anomalous paths of the planets that could not be rationally reconciled. Ptolemaic cosmology theorized that the earth was stationary, and all planets and the sun revolved around the earth. One example of a paradigm shift is the transition of Ptolemaic to Copernican cosmology. A paradigm shift results in the abandonment of old paradigms and the adoption of new paradigms to reconcile the anomalies. This process is in contradistinction to Whig theory, where new truths are added to old truths to advance the field. The new paradigm gains new followers in the scientific community until it becomes the current paradigm, and the old paradigm becomes historic and irrelevant. The aftermath of the crisis resolution or scientific revolution is that a new paradigm is born. When enough anomalies accrue within a current paradigm, the “normal science” cannot explain the variations and is thrown into a crisis, resulting in the need for extraordinary research or innovation to address these anomalies. However, Kuhn keenly points out that, even under the best of “normal science” conditions, anomalies will occur, and the current paradigm cannot universally explain these anomalies. Kuhn defined a paradigm shift as “a fundamental change in the basic concepts and experimental practices of a scientific discipline.” A paradigm designates what the members of a specific scientific community have in common, and their “normal science” is characterized by a set of theories and ideas that give a clear set of tools to approach a problem. Kuhn challenged Whig theory because he interestingly did not see scientific advancement as a steady, forward-moving, cumulative process, but saw it as having alternating phases of “normal” and “revolutionary” periods. Essentially, in this theory, scientific advances occur secondary to the continual advancement of the “truth,” and occur because of a greater and greater understanding of the problem. Whig theory purports that scientific advances occur because of the addition of new truths to old truths with an increasing approximation of the theories to the truths and, in the odd case, correction of past errors. A Google search of this textbook performed while writing this editorial returned 122 million hits.īefore Kuhn’s book, scientific discovery was based on Whig theory of the history of science. The term “paradigm shift” was introduced in 1962 by Kuhn, 1 a physicist, historian, and philosopher who described it in his book, “Structure of Scientific Revolutions.” This textbook has become one of the most cited academic books of all time. However, the GFGI impulse led to my ordering a book on Amazon, followed by a fundamental change in the way I understood the history of scientific discovery, as well as how I changed my views of advances in the field of hand surgery. I initially thought it would take a few minutes to get a summary and etymology of the term so I could put another useless fact in my brain for future use. Wondering what the origin and meaning of “paradigm shift” was, I quickly GFGI’ed (Go Freaking Google It) it. A few years ago, I was at a meeting, and the term “paradigm shift” was being repeated in multiple presentations. ![]()
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