The scientific revolutions in the early twentieth century caused philosophers of science to being asking the question of how science accepts its theories. The first answer was given by [[Karl Popper]] in his [[Popper_(1959)#_SCITEac2da6e3e07142716bdf470b23e6d6b0|Logic of Scientific Discovery]]. Popper believed old theories replaced by new theories when an old theory is falsified and a new theory is accepted in its place. This occurs in a crucial experiment that successfully tests a bold conjecture made by the new theory.
The next significant development occurred when [[Thomas Kuhn]] suggested in [[Kuhn_(1962)#_SCITE15d65062633c419a100efae93b3ac85c|The Structure of Scientific Revolutions]] that theory changes are paradigm shifts, where the world view of the entire scientific community changes. In his conception, the old and new theories are incommensurable.
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