Growing up in the current government run education system, the history of science is presented as a grand accent up the slope of knowledge, with only one grooved path traveled. However, when looked at outside of the popular story we are told in our youth, the picture diffuses. At first glance, nothing clear comes into view. At times it seems that our current body of accepted knowledge is indeed an accumulation of previous thoughts; at other times, the path seems to twist and turn, split off into multiple segments only to unite later, and sometimes the path even backtracks. This is hardly the glossed-over golden staircase of one’s youth. What does it matter, the nature of the path? Why can we not be satisfied with where we are and continue upward?

To be able to correctly and accurately understand the development of science gives us an accurate picture of the development of the human species, which appeals to the goals of the historian. Secondly, to know the process of previous gains in knowledge gives us a window into the nature of our knowledge, which appeals to the philosopher. Finally, if we are able to recognize pass patterns of scientific worldview development, then we can proceed with future developments in a more efficient manner, which is of interest to the scientist. Historians, philosophers, and scientists grapple at the question of accumulation vs. revolution. One of the most influential works on the subject was Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. In this paper, his views will be explained and examined by taking a look at some of the turning point in scientific thought; hopefully revealing a better insight into the nature of scientific progress than what is revealed with casual observation.

Summary of Kuhn’s Theory

No one is born with a worldview; one is given their worldview, at least initially. It is the same with scientists as it is with newborns. Kuhn posits that all science is done within a framework, or paradigm, that is given to them in their education. This education instills within the student, the dogmas that are needed to practice his work. The work, or research, that the scientist does is called normal science; it mainly consists of reinforcing the paradigm. This view of research in the words of Kuhn is not about discovering the unknown, but “a strenuous and devoted attempt to force nature into the conceptual boxes applied by professional education:”(Kuhn, Thomas. 1970. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Third Edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p 5.)”: .”

The paradigm itself is born out of several competing theories, with the winner forming the worldview of that branch of science. The winning theory is able to solve the problems of the day better that its competitors. Once the paradigm is established, normal science can occur, in which the details of the paradigm are worked out and verified repeatedly. Ultimately, anomalies will occur that present problems for the scientists and the community. These anomalies are results of normal science that the paradigm cannot explain. Oftentimes, the paradigm will simply be added onto to in order to resolve the anomaly. For example, when it was realized that light was in fact a wave early in the 19th century, there suddenly had to be a medium for the light wave to travel in. Waves are simply energy transferred by motion. Space was seen as fundamentally empty at the time, so it had to be “filled up” with a medium, called aether. There was no evidence for aether, but the theory demanded that light was a wave and all waves must travel in a medium. This addition without evidence to a theory is what is considered “ad hoc.”

These ad hoc solutions to the anomalies ultimately add more problems to the theory than they solve. In the example from above, the addition of aether to the scientific model opened up a whole new slew of problems to solve. Now that there was a universal medium that effected light, would it not also affect all other bodies moving through it? The planets, including the Earth, should interact with this medium, just as light does. Friction should occur, resulting in a gradual slowdown of the orbits of the planets. Evidence, speaks to the contrary; in the 10,000 years worth of astronomical observations that we have available, there seems to be no slowdown whatsoever. In addition to the slowdown of the orbits, light should be affected by the medium ether the same way other waves are affected by the mediums they travel in. In short, the light should diffuse in space as it does in air. At such long distances that light from distant stars travel, the light that reaches us should be diffused to a point that it is rendered unintelligible. However, this is not the case, light does not seem to diffuse in the aether. The ad hoc solution to the original problem did not yield a progression in our knowledge about the nature of light; instead, it only introduced more problems and further confusion. It is out of this confusion, says Kuhn that scientific revolutions occur.

The confusion that results from the persistent anomalies is the foundation from which new paradigms flower. Once the system becomes too overloaded by the presence of the unsolvable anomalies, certain members of the scientific community begin to look at the problem from another light. This will result in new theories, which are able to explain the phenomena without the hang-ups normal science’s ad hoc solutions provide. Once again these new theories compete with one another for supremacy. As before, the theory that wins will create the new paradigm. Often, the creator of the new paradigm will not realize that his science has been revolutionary. Only in looking back will one see the change. Examples of this are Kuhn himself and Einstein. What happens to the old paradigm? It is abandoned and discarded. Those who hold on to it are simply “wrote out” of the literary body of that branch of science. Kuhn argues that this pattern of events has occurred in each of the scientific turning points throughout history.

Observations

The implications of Kuhn work are far reaching. If we are to understand science in terms of revolutionary, paradigm shifts, then it would seem to follow that the old paradigms would be of no use to us currently. According to the model set out by Kuhn, the previous paradigms should not be in use. Another implication of this is that no specific paradigm can be considered actual knowledge. Each paradigm is simply the current view; older views are not viewed as wrong, but simply different. Following from this is the idea that the scientific community as a whole is not getting progressively closer to discovering the actuality of nature. When we view scientific history as simply a list of successive ideas that do not move us closer to reality, only a better explanation of the problems that scientists set out for themselves, our previous goal of objectivity falls to the wayside. If science is rendered subjective to the group and not objective to reality, then science looses its mission and appeal.

In the political and social revolutions that are paralleled with Kuhn’s version of scientific revolution, the old system is completely done away with. The same is not true in scientific revolutions. While worldviews may change and new methods are created, there is an underlying body of knowledge that persists. When Einstein discovered a new way to look at time and space all of Newtonian physics did not fall apart. Gravity, while its explanation changed, did not fall by the wayside.

A minor point in Kuhn’s system is that an almost negative view of scientists emerges. That is to say, upon reading the work and person would not want to be the type of scientist that Kuhn prescribes. Each scientist’s work is stripped of its intrinsic value. The normal scientist is accused of being closed minded as a rule, and engages in scientific study that has a predetermined outcome that is fixed by the scientist beforehand. The normal science is not speculative and objective, but rather trivial and riddled with self-deceit. A casual reading of Discover magazine reveals a picture of scientists striving for reality in their work. Willful and un-willful deceit does not play a roll in their experiments or research. Instead the scientists are driven by questions. These questions are not only tied to the current paradigm, but also to a universal search for a description of reality. Einstein himself set out to discover “theories of principle” that all phenomena must satisfy:”(Lee Smolin. September 2004. Einstein’s Lonely Path. Discover Magazine. p 38)”: . Even now, within the paradigms of Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity, scientists are searching for the “Grand Unifying Theory,” sometimes referred to as M-Theory. They are not simply trotting away at minor problems that Quantum Mechanics or General Relativity prescribes. They are seeking instead, as Stephen Hawking puts it at the end of his book, The Universe in a Nutshell, “the universe in a nutshell:”(Stephen Hawking. 2001. The Universe in a Nutshell. New York: Bantam Books. p 200.)”: .”

It is not always the case that change in scientific thought occurs through such a ridged structure. When examining certain revolutions in science, sets of circumstances occur that are not repeated in future revolutions. This tends to point to the uniqueness of each change in thought, each revolution. The political and personal circumstances around Newton, Copernicus, Galileo, and Einstein can never be duplicated, and the case can be made that if certain elements circumstance were changed, each might not have made their particular contribution.

Another Possible Path

It seems to be the case that we know more now than we did 50, 100, and 1,000 years ago. This would seem to point to the idea of progression and away from pure revolutions. It is also the case that there have been several periods of tremendous upheaval in the world of science in the last 50, 100, and 1,000 years that have almost completely shattered the way we view the world. This seems to point one in the opposite direction, away from the idea of progression and towards that of revolution. With the observation of both facts, it seems that neither can be the case. It is possible that science is both? When surveyed with the inclusion of both facts, the pursuit of science, which is the pursuit of reality, tends to be one filled not with revolutions, but realizations. It is not revolutionary, because not all of the old paradigms are cast away; some even co-exist, like Quantum Physics and General Relativity. Likewise is it not simply progressive like mathematics, errors have been made and errors have been help for almost a thousand years. Instead science is a constant progression of realizations. They have revolutionary repercussions, but are not fully revolutionary in their retention and foundation upon prior ideas.