1/7/2023 0 Comments Social paradigm shiftHere's what the Wikipedia entry on paradigm shift has to say:Ī paradigm shift is, according to Thomas Kuhn in his influential book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), a change in the basic assumptions, or paradigms, within the ruling theory of science. While Paradigm Change is the more popular term, "paradigm shift" was Thomas Kuhn's preferred term. ġ865: The British Board of Trade mandates citrus use. None of the other treatments worked.ġ795: The British Royal Navy begins using citrus on a regular basis. Those receiving citrus were cured in a few days. James Lind conducts a controlled experiment in which scurvy patients were treated with a variety of elixirs. The crew receiving the lemon juice treatment remained largely healthy.ġ747: Dr. Results: At the Cape of Good Hope 110 out of 278 sailors had died, most from scurvy. of lemon juice daily the crew on the other ships did not. Prior to the 1600s, scurvy (vitamin C deficiency) was the greatest killer of seafarers-more than battle deaths, storms, accidents, and all others combined.ġ601: Lancaster conducts a controlled experiment during an East India Company voyage. In Business Dynamics: Systems Thinking and Modeling for a Complex World, John Sterman documented how long it took Paradigm Change to come to the British merchant marine: (page 19) The larger the difference between two paradigms, the slower the Model Revolution and Paradigm Change steps usually are. But if incommensurability is acute the delay it causes spills out into the Paradigm Change step, slowing it down considerably. Collectively these reasons have been described as the incommensurability of the pre and post revolutionary Normal Science traditions.Īctually the incommensurate paradigms problem applies mostly to the Model Revolution step. We have already seen several reasons why the proponents of competing paradigms must fail to make complete contact with each other's viewpoints. The competition between paradigms is not the sort of battle that can be solved by proofs. Though each may hope to convert the other to his way of seeing his science and its problems, neither may hope to prove his case. Like Proust and Berthollet arguing about the composition of chemical compounds, they are bound partly to talk through each other. Neither side will grant all the non-empirical assumptions that the other needs in order to make its case. The proponents of competing paradigms are always at least slightly at cross-purposes. If there were but one set of scientific problems, one world within which to work on them, and one set of standards for their solution, paradigm competition might be settled more or less routinely by some process like counting the number of problems solved by each.īut in fact these conditions are never met. Writing in his chapter on The Resolution of Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn states that: (pages 147 to 148) Each side can "prove" their paradigm is better. They are incomparable because each side uses their own paradigm's rules to judge the other paradigm. This bias can run so deep that two paradigms are incommensurate. If a person or system is biased toward its present paradigm, then a new paradigm is seen as inferior, even though it may be better. They change only when forced to or when the change offers a strong advantage. The field is now back to the Normal Science step and a Kuhn Cycle is complete. When the new paradigm becomes the generally accepted guide to one's work, the step is complete. In the Paradigm Change step the new paradigm is taught to newcomers to the field, as well as to those already in it. Earlier steps have created the new model of understanding (the new paradigm). Also called a paradigm shift, Paradigm change is the fifth and final step in the Kuhn Cycle.
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