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It may be unfashionable but it’s also powerful, and if you want to understand it, and its power, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions - as short and beautifully written a classic of philosophy as you could possibly ask for - is as good a place as any to start.
It may be unfashionable but it’s also powerful, and if you want to understand it, and its power, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions - as short and beautifully written a classic of philosophy as you could possibly ask for - is as good a place as any to start.


Following publication of “Structure", Kuhn had a famous public debate with {{author|Karl Popper}} over what counts as science and the way in which science develops over time. Popper had, in {{br|The Logic of Scientific Discovery}}, made the invaluable observation that “verification” as a standard for science is too high, since as a matter of logic an argument based on induction (“since the sun has risen on every day in recorded history, therefore it will rise tomorrow”) can never be proven true: for all our folksy expectations, current cosmology predicts that there will be a point in the distant future when the sun will explode, and therefore will not rise tomorrow.
Following publication of “Structure”, Kuhn had a famous public debate with {{author|Karl Popper}} over what counts as science and the way in which science develops over time. Popper had, in {{br|The Logic of Scientific Discovery}}, made the invaluable observation that “verification” as a standard for science is too high, since as a matter of logic an argument based on induction (“since the sun has risen on every day in recorded history, therefore it will rise tomorrow”) can never be proven true: for all our folksy expectations, current cosmology predicts that there will be a point in the distant future when the sun will explode, and therefore will not rise tomorrow.


In lieu of verification as the scientific gold standard, Popper asserted (seemingly plausibly) that valid scientific theory could be assessed by the ''lack of any falsifying evidence'' among the data. To be of any use, a scientific theory must be “falsifiable”: it must narrow down from the list of all ''possible'' outcomes a set of predicted ones, and rule the rest out. Theories which cannot be falsified by ''any'' conceivable evidence don’t do that, so fail at science’s fundamental task. They are not science.
In lieu of verification as the scientific gold standard, Popper asserted (seemingly plausibly) that valid scientific theory could be assessed by the ''lack of any falsifying evidence'' among the data. To be of any use, a scientific theory must be “falsifiable”: it must narrow down from the list of all ''possible'' outcomes a set of predicted ones, and rule the rest out. Theories which cannot be falsified by ''any'' conceivable evidence don’t do that, so fail at science’s fundamental task. They are not science.
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Thomas Kuhn’s insight was to offer the historian’s perspective that, while that might be theory, that’s not what science has ever done in practice. Scientific theories are ''never'' thrown out the moment contradictory evidence is observed: the dial is tapped, the experiment re-run, and “numerous articulations and ''[[ad hoc]]'' modifications of their theory” are devised to eliminate apparent conflict. When the data won’t do what they’re meant to, sometimes it is the ''question'' which is rejected as being irrelevant, and not the answer predicted by the theory.
Thomas Kuhn’s insight was to offer the historian’s perspective that, while that might be theory, that’s not what science has ever done in practice. Scientific theories are ''never'' thrown out the moment contradictory evidence is observed: the dial is tapped, the experiment re-run, and “numerous articulations and ''[[ad hoc]]'' modifications of their theory” are devised to eliminate apparent conflict. When the data won’t do what they’re meant to, sometimes it is the ''question'' which is rejected as being irrelevant, and not the answer predicted by the theory.


All this activity takes place inside what Kuhn describes (somewhat inconsistently) as a “[[paradigm]]” - a “particular coherent tradition of scientific research". The [[paradigm]] governs not only the theory but the education, instrumentation, rules and standards of scientific practice, and is the basis on which the scientific community decides which kinds of questions are and are not relevant to the development of scientific research. A paradigm claims exclusivity over the adjudication of its own subject matter, and one only has authority to pronounce on a scientific problem once one has been fully inducted: evolutionary biologists will not take seriously the biological assertions of fundamentalist Christians, for example. Fundamentalist Christians who take biology exams will fail, and thereby will never be able to authoritatively comment on biological matters.
All this activity takes place inside what Kuhn describes as a “[[paradigm]]” - a “particular coherent tradition of scientific research". The [[paradigm]] governs not only the theory but the education, instrumentation, rules and standards of scientific practice, and is the basis on which the scientific community decides which kinds of questions are and are not relevant to the development of scientific research. A paradigm claims exclusivity over the adjudication of its own subject matter, and one only has authority to pronounce on a scientific problem once one has been fully inducted: evolutionary biologists will not take seriously the biological assertions of fundamentalist Christians, for example. Fundamentalist Christians who take biology exams will fail, and thereby will never be able to authoritatively comment on biological matters.


Paradigms are useful for the jobbing scientist: they provide a pre-agreed framework — what {{author|Daniel Dennett}} would call a “crane” — on which additional scientific research can be undertaken without having, literally, to re-invent the wheel. Kuhn characterises this sort of “normal scientist” as being involved in “puzzle solving” in exactly the sense that one solves a crossword puzzle. You have a framework of rules for how to solve the puzzle; you have problems (the blank spaces on the puzzle) and you empirically obtained evidence (clues) which you manipulate using the rules to produce predictions (or answers), and each newly discovered answer then acts as an additional clue to solve the remaining problems.
Paradigms are useful for the jobbing scientist: they provide a pre-agreed framework — what {{author|Daniel Dennett}} would call a “crane” — on which additional scientific research can be undertaken without having, literally, to re-invent the wheel. Kuhn characterises this sort of “normal scientist” as being involved in “puzzle solving” in exactly the sense that one solves a crossword puzzle. You have a framework of rules for how to solve the puzzle; you have problems (the blank spaces on the puzzle) and you empirically obtained evidence (clues) which you manipulate using the rules to produce predictions (or answers), and each newly discovered answer then acts as an additional clue to solve the remaining problems.
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