Who is Thomas Kuhn? (1922-1996)
Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996) examined the issue of bias.
He understood that scientists operate within frameworks—to the point where he saw the entire history of science as movements through paradigm shifts. He argued that the history of science has and will continue to progress through several identifiable stages: (1) pre-science; (2) normal science; (3) crisis; (4) revolution; (5) new normal science; (6) new crisis; etc., to infinity.[1]
What a population calls “normal science” is really just the currently accepted paradigm of the majority.
Inevitably, as the history of science shows, there arises an anomaly that is not consistent within the currently accepted paradigm. When enough anomalies are discovered, there’s a period of insecurity. Scientists who veer away from the accepted paradigm appear to be “living in different worlds.”[2]
At some point when the anomalies cannot be ignored any longer, there is a crisis leading to a revolution, during which the new paradigm becomes the accepted norm.
In this way, for Kuhn, scientific revolutions are like political revolutions, gestalt switches[3] and even religious conversions.[4]
Scientific revolutions include (1) moving from Euclidean to Non-Euclidean geometry; (2) from an Aristotelian/Ptolemaic model of the universe to that of Copernicus; (3) from Newton’s concept of gravity to Einstein’s; and (4) from the Standard Model of physics to Quantum Mechanics.
Why is Thomas Kuhn Important?
Kuhn’s work, along with that of Karl Popper and Imre Lakatos, illustrate there are serious limitations with science. It is important to discuss these limitations when exploring the creation debate.
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