Changes

Drawing partially on Fleck’s ideas, physicist and historian of science [[Thomas_Kuhn|Thomas Kuhn]] published his ideas about scientific change as 'The Structure of Scientific Revolutions' in 1962.[[CiteRef::Kuhn (1962)]] Kuhn spoke of ''scientific paradigms'', which are constellations of theoretical and metaphysical beliefs, values, methods, and instrumental techniques shared by a scientific discipline. A paradigm determines which questions are asked of the natural world by observation and experiment. Adherents to a paradigm engage in ''normal science'', which solves the puzzles needed to expand the range of natural phenomena that can be explained using the paradigm. Eventually, ''anomalies'' may be unearthed. These are phenomena that recalcitrantly resist explanation in terms of the paradigm. If anomalies persist and grow in number, practitioners seek fundamentally new approaches. If a new approach is successful at resolving salient anomalies and is deemed to hold promise for solving new puzzles, a ''scientific revolution'' may result, in which a new paradigm replaces the old. Because paradigms are holistic networks of theories, methods, and values, they are ''incommensurable'' with one another, meaning that the terms and categories of the old paradigm cannot be translated into those of the new. Adoption of a new paradigm thus appeared, especially to Kuhn’s critics, to involve a kind of non-rational leap of faith.[[CiteRef::Bird (20132011)]] [[CiteRef::Kuhn (1962)]]