Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996) did not invent the concept of scientific revolution, but he gave it a special meaning and created a phrase – “paradigm shift” – so popular that it received the ultimate accolade: no fewer than four New Yorker spoofings (from 1974 to 2009). On its first appearance, we find a sexy young woman in bell-bottom trousers at a Manhattan cocktail party flattering a balding metropolitan with: “Dynamite, Mr Gerston. You’re the first person I heard use the word ‘paradigm’ in real life.”
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (hereafter The Structure) commands the attention of a list such as this for its remarkable influence on our understanding of science and also its continued grip on our interpretative response to scientific history. The Structure is a work of ideas more than style (its prose can sometimes seem rather heavy going), but one might argue that Kuhn, an American physicist and philosopher of science, had triggered his own paradigm shift with the publication of this seminal monograph, a book demonstrating that however powerful science might be, it remains as flawed as the scientists who explore its many mysteries.
Continue reading...
0 comments:
Post a Comment