3 Questions: David Kaiser on Thomas Kuhn’s paradigm shift
If you’ve ever talked about a “paradigm shift,” you’ve channeled Thomas Kuhn, the historian and philosopher of science whose landmark 1962 bestseller, “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions,” changed how people discuss the scientific enterprise. Kuhn asserted that most research takes place during periods of “normal science,” which are occasionally upended when scientists find a new and more compelling framework, or paradigm, for interpreting known observations — such as Newton’s overturning of Aristotelian ideas about motion. To Kuhn, this also suggested that scientific knowledge does not consist of a straightforward accumulation of objective facts — a controversial view often seized upon by skeptics of science, to Kuhn’s chagrin.Kuhn spent the last 17 years of his career at MIT, until his death in 1996. On Friday, the Institute will host a symposium on Kuhn’s thought and influence, on the 50th anniversary of his celebrated book. MIT News spoke with David Kaiser, the...