This means that the older paradigm is replaced by the new and the new concepts and views and the new are not compatible with the old. "...the new paradigm cannot build on the preceding one. Rather, it can only supplant it..." (Thomas Kuhn). Kuhn's theory was in effect challenging a view of scientific progress that had begun with Comte and the Enlightenment. This refers to the original view and belief

Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996) was an American scientist, historian and philosopher who wrote a controversial book in 1962 called The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Kuhn was born in Cincinnati, Ohio and from an early age expressed interest in science, particularly physics; obtaining his BS degree in physics from Harvard in 1943. He stayed at Harvard for his MS and PhD, and credits the period of the late 1940s in helping him

Philosophy Kuhn's Rationale on the Irrationality of Scientific Revolutions "Communities in this sense exist, of course, at numerous levels. The most global is the community of all natural scientists." ~Thomas S. Kuhn, from The Structure of Scientific Revolutions To understand Thomas Kuhn's ideas regarding scientific revolutions, one must have a grasp on Kuhn's ideas relating to the history of science in general. Kuhn's perspective on the history of science is that scientific knowledge is

The concept of the paradigm shift, however, negates the very idea that truth could ever actually be reached. Each paradigm -- which only gives way to another paradigm, leaving all knowledge and understanding ultimately tied to some semblance of foundational assumptions. There is no getting beyond the assumptions, as they are a necessary component (in Kuhn's view) of establishing any sort of causal understanding at all. Science is then, taking

Education Reform A Paradigm Shift in Education Reform Basic ideas are not confined to one branch of science or one area of academic study; if it is a truly worthwhile idea it can be expanded to include many different area of science. The scientific method was at first thought to only be useful to those scientists who knew that they could find definitive answers such as mathematicians and physicists. The hard sciences

More especially, neither observation nor reason can be described as a source of knowledge, in the sense in which they have been claimed to be sources of knowledge, down to the present day. (1962, p. 4). Clearly, discerning "the truth" is a complicated endeavor in any setting, and applying rigid rules of analyses will not always succeed. This point is made by Thomas Kuhn (2000), who advises, "Does it really