by Science in our society today is an ever changing field that focuses on the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment. The evolution of science has led to the greater understanding of our universe and physical world. The progression of science is a gradual process that is the culmination of years of continued research and experiment. There is not a certain point in time where one can say that a break through or revolution in science has occurred. Contrary to Kuhn’s paradigm, science gradually accumulates in knowledge and does not undergo periodic revolutions.
Karl Popper initially defined scientific theory by the ability it falsifiability, refutability or testability. Karl Popper focuses on the demarcation problem of the field of science. Can any field of study be characterized as science? Karl Popper’s view was that if a field can test whether or not something can be falsified, refuted or tested then it can be characterized as science. But also noted that hypotheses may never be able to be refuted by evidence due to ad hoc hypothesis. Popper defined ad hoc hypothesis as a hypothesis that is raised only to save the original hypothesis from being falsified. Popper’s definition of science is more broad and would include the fields of social science in contrast to Thomas Kuhn’s belief that science is comprised of mainly hard sciences such as Math, Chemistry, Biology and Physics.
Thomas Kuhn’s belief that science only goes through periodic revolutions does not recognize the smaller contributions that led up to the more groundbreaking discovery. No paradigm shift where the practices that define a scientific discipline at a certain point in time have been changed happens without gradual steps. Kuhn’s paradigm shift theory fails to look at what other discoveries happened before the paradigm altering one.
The development of the atomic model went through many gradual paradigm shifts, each being the product of many years of scientific research. Each paradigm shift cannot be attributed to only one moment in history. For example, it was initially thought by the Greeks that if you kept on breaking something down into smaller and smaller pieces you would eventually reach a point at which you could no longer break it down – the atom. J.J. Thomson then continued on this idea and created a paradigm shifting hypothesis in which he was able to determine that atoms have electrons that contain a negative charge. Thomson was able to make this paradigm shifting hypothesis though through the use of a cathode ray and building upon the experimentation and tools that scientists before him had made (1). It was not just through his own self-discovery that he made such a breakthrough.
I do not believe that we can characterize the evolution of science simply by looking paradigm shifts that take place in our society. Rather we must consider the breakthroughs of science to be a gradual process in which there is a continued buildup of knowledge that leads to great discovery. Kuhn ultimately fails to recognize the smaller developments that lead to breakthroughs of science in his paradigm shift hypothesis. We must value smaller scientific discoveries in addition to the paradigm shifting ones.
Source:
- https://www.wired.com/2009/09/the-development-of-the-atomic-model/
- Image 1: https://www.thoughtco.com/definition-of-atomic-weight-604378