Is scientific progress the result of accumulated research or revolutionary paradigm shifts?

This book discusses the question of whether scientific progress is the result of a gradual accumulation of research achievements or a revolutionary paradigm shift. It explores the nature of scientific progress, focusing on Kuhn’s theory of scientific revolutions, explaining the relationship between steady-state and revolutionary scientific progress, as well as its objections and limitations.

 

Is scientific progress a continuous accumulation of research achievements? If you haven’t thought about the topic in depth, most people would say yes. And this was the prevailing view before Kuhn. However, Kuhn’s Copernican Revolution and The Structure of Scientific Revolutions revolutionised our understanding of how science works.
Of course, science still works by accumulating research findings based on established theories, and slowly expanding our understanding of the world. In fact, this is what most scientists do. Refining the standard theory in particle physics, trying to calculate the motion of the planets using Newtonian mechanics, or the work of astronomers before the Copernican revolution are all examples of this. This period of science is called normal science. Normal science is essentially puzzle-solving. Puzzlers and scientists are similar in that they both know that there is a solution, and they both know the rules used to solve it. The rules used to solve the puzzle are the paradigm.
Normal science is the process of solving detailed problems through stable, ongoing research. This allows us to make accurate predictions of natural phenomena, and many technological advances in our daily lives. For example, advances in weather forecasting systems or communication technologies are based on the achievements of normal science. The accumulation of the normal sciences paves the way for humanity to gain a deeper understanding of nature, and in this respect, the normal sciences play a very important role.
However, according to Kuhn, the truly creative and great advances come not from normal science, but from scientific revolutions. A scientific revolution is a process in which the existing paradigm of normal science is replaced by a new paradigm, such as the Copernican revolution or the replacement of Newtonian mechanics by Einstein’s theories.
In the course of normal science, phenomena or findings are often discovered that do not fit well with existing theories. This is called an anomaly. However, the appearance of an anomaly does not mean that all scientists abandon their existing theories. Instead, they consider the anomaly as a counterexample to the existing theory and abandon the existing paradigm, and stick to the existing paradigm because they have not yet succeeded in solving the mystery. And in many cases, the anomaly can be understood by applying the existing theories. This is when we succeed in solving the mystery. In the case of the heliocentric theory, the retrograde motion of the planets is an anomaly. However, rather than questioning the belief that the Earth is at rest, the concept of mains power was introduced to explain the retrograde motion.
However, some serious anomalies cannot be interpreted within the framework of existing theories. This is where the crisis comes in. Copernicus believed that he could not continue to explain the retrograde motion of the planets by introducing large and small mains, and this can be considered a crisis of the heliocentric theory.
In times of crisis, some scientists step outside the framework of existing theories and introduce new theories. These new theories are still immature and not as accurate as the old ones, but they offer a new way of looking at phenomena. The birth of geodynamics is an example of this. However, the language of the two paradigms is different, so it is not possible to compare which is the superior paradigm. This is known as incommensurability, so the choice of which paradigm to adopt is entirely a matter of personal preference, and Kuhn likened the process of adopting a new paradigm to religious conversion.
Over time, as the new theoretical framework becomes more precise, and as the authority figures in the community of scientists who adhered to the old theory begin to recede, most scientists will come to accept the new paradigm. This process of consensus among a community of scientists on a new paradigm is known as a scientific revolution.
However, there are objections to Kuhn’s argument. First of all, there is the question of whether all science really evolves from a normal science to a new normal science through a scientific revolution, as Kuhn suggests. Kuhn’s examples of scientific revolutions include the Copernican revolution, the acceptance of relativity, quantum theory, Lavoisier’s chemical revolution, and Darwin’s theory of evolution. However, most of them fall into the realm of physics, and the text is mainly concerned with physics. Given that Kuhn began his studies as a physicist, it’s understandable that he’s mainly talking about physics, but it’s unclear whether his explanations apply to other fields of science. In his book This is Biology, biologist Ernst Meyer argues that there has never been a period of steady state science in biology, noting that the concept of evolution existed more than a century before the publication of The Origin of Species and was not accepted until 100 years after its publication. According to him, biology is fundamentally different from physics in subject matter, history, methodology, and philosophy.
It is also uncertain whether the Copernican Revolution, which is often cited as a prime example of a revolution, was really a revolution at all. It took over 100 years for the geodynamic theory to be proposed and fully accepted. Of course, a paradigm shift from celestial to geodynamic is a huge event. However, the fact that it took this long for the paradigm shift to occur suggests that it is somewhere in between a gradual accumulation and a revolution rather than a revolutionary change.
Kuhn also emphasised that because of the incommitment between paradigms, the choice of paradigm by individual scientists is not based solely on rational criteria, which may be an undue criticism of science. Since science is an activity carried out by scientists and their societies, it is natural to expect temporary irrationality during paradigm shifts. What matters is the steady progression of rationality over a longer period of time, rather than the irrationality of those brief periods.
Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions has had such an impact on people’s perceptions that the term ‘paradigm’ has come to be used not only in the history of science, but also in the humanities, philosophy, and everyday life. As Kuhn pointed out, there have been revolutionary changes in the history of science that cannot be explained by gradual accumulation alone, but it is unclear whether these revolutionary changes are simply a matter of a few episodes or whether the nature of science is that it develops through revolutionary paradigm shifts. In addition, the irrationality of scientists and scientific societies is inevitable as long as we are human, and the important thing is that science continues to develop despite such irrationality.