Paradigm: Difference between revisions

Now note here: none of this is malicious, requires a conspiracy or involves the wanton suppression of dissident voices. The development of a paradigm is a thoroughly natural — inevitable — mode of social development. Those who defend the sacred texts of the organisation by interposing barries are doing no more than the essential work of ensuring the research programme, such as it is, has continuity and longevity. If ''any'' random can kick away ''any'' pillar of the edifice, no matter how structurally important, your paradigm cannot grow and will not survive. These are basic survival mechanisms. The more sophisticated the paradigm becomes, the more precious do those foundational propositions become. String theory, for example, is a young discipline, has not yet fully covered and has very few common axioms, there is still much debate about all of them, and all are more or less expendable. Newton’s basic laws of mechanics, on the other hand, are so deeply embedded that they inform much contiguous science to this day ''even though they were falsified a century ago''. The effort of re-writing the entire scientific canon to accommodate mathematics which is far harder than newtons, and which for the most part makes almost no difference, is just not worth the effort.

Now, as [[buzzword]]-brandishing [[MBA]]s amply illustrate, the intellectual concept of a paradigm is by no means confined to scientific discovery. Indeed, it has something of the “[[universal acid]]” of {{br|Darwin’s Dangerous Idea}} about it — once you see it, you can’t unsee it, and you start seeing it ''everywhere''. Religious orders function in exactly the same way. So do political ones. So do lawyers. So do industry associations. So do other academic disciplines. So do sports clubs. So do dissident protest movements. ''So does any social organisation with a common goal''. It has to. This is the definition of a social organisation. Paradigms resemble {{author|Daniel Dennett}}’s “universal acid” ''because that is exactly what they are'': [[paradigm]]s arise from an evolutionary process. The community that constitutes a paradigm ''evolves'' to be the way it is. It gradually [[iterate]]s over time. This ''is'' the [[universal acid]].