Introduction: A Role for History
This chapter invites scientists to look at more than just what is written
in the textbooks. Kuhn says that the textbooks are persuasive and
misleading - they would have students believe that the laws and theorems of
science have been progressing and leading up to the truth we know today. However, Kuhn believes that in order to fully understand science the scientist needs to look beyond
the observations, laws, and theories described in the pages of a textbook.
He suggests the idea that out of date theories are not "unscientific"
simply because
they have been discarded. The fact that they were discarded fifty years
ago should not mean that they are to be overlooked today. He invites
scientists to look into old theories to attempt to prove them today with
the added technology available.This chapter also compares the term normal science to the term scientific revolution. Normal science is defined to be a prediction on the assumption that the scientific community knows how the world works. The success of normal science relies on the willingness of the community to defend an assumption. Kuhn defines scientific revolution as tradition shattering complements to the tradition bound activity of normal science.
The Route to Normal Science
This chapter offers a more in depth definition of the term "normal science". Here Kuhn
also states his definition of a paradigm and explains the two essential
characteristics which make up a paradigm.
These characteristics are as follows:
1) The paradigm
had to be unprecedented so as to attract the scientific community, and
2)
it must be open ended enough that several different groups of scientists
could work on different problems within the same paradigm.
Kuhn then discusses the pattern of mature science - the successive transition from one paradigm to another through a revolution.
Kuhn looks at several fields of research throughout history, being sure to not give full recognition to just one scientist. He pays particular attention to the electrical advances that took place in the first half of the eighteenth century.
Normal Science as Puzzle-Solving
This chapter discusses how to use normal science methods to solve the big picture problems. Also discussed are examples of how these methods were used to develop some electrical theories. He discusses the parallelism between puzzles and the problems of normal science. There is an existence of a strong network of commitments to conceptual, theoretical, instrumental, and methodological aspects that relate normal science to puzzle-solving. It is true that most scientists (at least the ones we know) would consider themselves to be puzzle-solvers as much as they are scientists. After all, a scientist who is not trying to solve puzzles must be a bored scientist indeed!
The Priority of Paradigms
This chapter explores the relationship between rules, paradigms, and normal science. Kuhn uses an example throughout the chapter of the terms ÔchairÕ, ÔleafÕ, and ÔgameÕ and describes them in the scientific method described throughout the chapter.
He then moves on to discuss four reasons that paradigms should be looked at as more then just a theoretical aspect of normal science.
Anomaly and the Emergence of Scientific Discoveries
Kuhn now moves past his initial topic of paradigm to scientific discovery saying
that in order for there to be a discovery, an anomaly must be detected
within the field of study. He discusses several different studies and
points out the anomaly that invoked the scientific discovery. Later in the
chapter he begins to discuss how the anomaly can be incorporated into the
discovery to satisfy the scientific community.There are three different characteristics of all discoveries from which new sorts of phenomena emerge. These three characteristics are proven through an experiment dealing with a deck of cards. The deck consisted of anomalous cards (e.g. the red six of spades shown on the previous page) mixed in with regular cards. These cards were held up in front of students who were asked to call out the card they saw, and in most cases the anomaly was not detected.
Crisis and the Emergence of Scientific Theories
This chapter explains how theories arise from normal science, and once these theories arise, how they are dealt with within the scientific community. The emergence to Copernican astronomy is discussed at length in this section to illustrate the steps scientists must go through for their ideas to become theories. For much of the scientific community new theories are not accepted without a sort of crisis within the community.
Using the example of comparing Einsteinian science to Newtonian dynamics he
proves his theory on how to deal with different interpretations.
Application of the theory must be restricted to certain phenomena,
therefore a scientist must not speak ÔscientificallyÕ about the subject in
question.The Response to Crisis
This chapter helps us understand what steps scientists go through to
begin to accept the new theory introduced to them. This means that they
look at the anomaly and what caused the anomaly in depth, then move on.
Kuhn discusses that some scientists desert science because they are unable
to tolerate crisis. The end of the chapter answers the question, do
scientists respond to the awareness of an anomaly in the fit between theory
and nature? Kuhn gives reference to Copernicus in length, and also to
NewtonÕs second law of motion.
The Nature and Necessity of Scientific Revolutions
The questions, "what are scientific revolutions and what is their function
in scientific development?", and "why should a change of paradigm be called a
revolution?" are addressed in this chapter. Kuhn compares political and
scientific development with political and scientific revolutions. He
explains how to research and what is considered normal research. He also
explains how to deal with different interpretations of the same theory.Revolutions as Changes of World View
This chapter basically states that the scientific historian may be tempted
to state that when paradigms change, the world changes with them. However,
this is not true according to Kuhn. Kuhn states that when the paradigm
changes the non-scientific community changes immediately but the scientific
community does not change right away. However, as soon as the scientific
community changes, then the world view will change over completely. He
proves this theory in the middle of the chapter with an example of
astronomers and the planet Uranus.
The Invisibility of Revolutions
This is a relatively short chapter dealing with what is referred to as the
invisibility if revolutions. This means that once a new scientific theory
is accepted the old theories tend to just disappear. This was illustrated
throughout the chapter by citations of different examples of old theories
(paradigms) which had
"disappeared." One was a textbook example - the older textbooks have older
theories in them, and as the books become more recent, the older theories
are not included. This causes the old theories to disappear.
The Resolution of Revolutions
This section answers the questions of what causes the group to abandon one
tradition of normal research in favor of another, and how are they able to
convert the entire profession to their way of seeing science and the world.
Going through this process allows the old theories to be put to rest or
resolved. These conversions occur despite the resistance of some of the
scientific community.
Progress Through Revolutions
This final chapter ties the previous chapters together by generally stating
that scientific progress is made possible through the revolutions seen
throughout time. Kuhn suggests that the problem of progress lies in the
eyes of the beholder. He also states that no matter how reluctant a
community is to change, the result of solving problems is inevitably
considered progress.
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