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The Structure of Scientific Revolutions |  | Author: Thomas S. Kuhn
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Category: Book
List Price: $13.00
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Rating:  131 reviews
Sales Rank: 3926
Media: Paperback
Edition: 3rd
Pages: 226
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.6
ISBN: 0226458083
Dewey Decimal Number: 501
EAN: 9780226458083
ASIN: 0226458083
Publication Date: December 15, 1996
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Amazon.com Review
There's a "Frank & Ernest" comic strip showing a chick breaking out of its shell, looking around, and saying, "Oh, wow! Paradigm shift!" Blame the late Thomas Kuhn. Few indeed are the philosophers or historians influential enough to make it into the funny papers, but Kuhn is one. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is indeed a paradigmatic work in the history of science. Kuhn's use of terms such as "paradigm shift" and "normal science," his ideas of how scientists move from disdain through doubt to acceptance of a new theory, his stress on social and psychological factors in science--all have had profound effects on historians, scientists, philosophers, critics, writers, business gurus, and even the cartoonist in the street. Some scientists (such as Steven Weinberg and Ernst Mayr) are profoundly irritated by Kuhn, especially by the doubts he casts--or the way his work has been used to cast doubt--on the idea of scientific progress. Yet it has been said that the acceptance of plate tectonics in the 1960s, for instance, was sped by geologists' reluctance to be on the downside of a paradigm shift. Even Weinberg has said that "Structure has had a wider influence than any other book on the history of science." As one of Kuhn's obituaries noted, "We all live in a post-Kuhnian age." --Mary Ellen Curtin
Product Description
Now available with a new Index, Kuhn's classic book offers "a landmark intelleectual history which has attracted attention far beyond its own immediate field (Nicholas Wade, Science). "Perhaps the best explanation of (the) process of discovery."--William Erwin Thompson, New York Times Book Review.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 131
 Knowledge versus truth November 8, 2009
Vincent Poirier (Tokyo, Japan)
We see science as a body of knowledge growing bit by bit, giving us a better and better understanding of the universe. But is that in fact the case? In this work, Thomas Kuhn destroys this traditional view of the scientific enterprise. He replaces the image of a progressive march upwards with one of a series of revolutions where old views are disguarded and replaced by new concepts radically different from what was accepted before.
Kuhn begins by defining his concept of the paradigm. A paradigm is a set of laws, theories, experiments, and instrumentation that together form a conceptual whole. At first, a field of study doesn't have a paradigm. Each student starts from scratch, repeating experiments that others have already carried out. Gradually a community of students come to an agreement that certain phenomena are related through some laws as demonstrated by certain basic experiments or repeatable observations, establishing a first paradigm. At this point, there are many lesser phenomena, or puzzles, that are left to explain. This is the task of what Kuhn calls normal science.
The ptolemeic solar system with the earth at the center of the universe is one example of a paradigm. The paradigm explains night and day, it explains the movement of the stars, the moon, and the planets. Its laws were a bit cumbersome but once the Julian calendar was worked out, it worked very well for centuries. However as scientists accumulated more and more data, they found it difficult to reconcile their observations with the earth centric system.
Copernicus came along. At first, his model of the universe didn't explain any of the ptolemeic system's unresolved puzzles, but it did hint that it might eventually do so. After 1000 years of fruitless work, a new generation of astronomers gave it a try. Once Kepler refined the Copernican system of planets moving around the sun, there was no turning back. The ptolemeic system was rejected and the sun centered model accepted. This revolution in world views Kuhn calls a paradigm shift.
But is this progress? After all, when it was first adopted, the Copernican system offered merely a hope of a better explanation. It eventually did realize this hope, but is even this system close to the truth? Kuhn's answer is that the truth doesn't matter. Progress is indeed a characteristic of the scientific enterprise but only insofar as a new paradigm yields more useful results.
Kuhn ends by drawing an anology between his view of scientific revolutions and Darwin's idea of evolution. Darwinism establishes that more complex organisms evolve from simpler ones, but without evolving towards any particular form. So too with science.
That better suited paradigms regularly replace less fit paradigms does not imply that newer paradigms are closer to the truth. After all, we now see the sun as the center of the solar system but it is nowhere near the center of the universe as we understand it today. That the truth might not be necessary to knowledge is perhaps Kuhn's own revolutionary scientific contribution.
Vincent Poirier, Tokyo
Great Work September 25, 2009
Melanie M. Tague (Columbia, MO)
Excellent comprehensive overview of scientific history and the process sciences follows through various and continuous paradigms that emerge and their resolution.
Reading for scientists in training September 10, 2009
Julie W. (Los Angeles, CA USA)
Kuhn has written an essay that has reached a vast audience as is evidenced by the variety of fields in which this work is cited. One demographic of people may especially benefit from his compelling philosophical work on the construction of science in society: the scientists in training. In the sense of Kuhn, such individuals would be more aptly described as "scientists in socialization." The theme of science as a creation and molding of social systems is a prominent tone throughout as the author outlines the process of scientific revolutions. Thus, the young or inexperienced generation of scientists may surely benefit from Kuhn's assertions of the scientific community as a dynamic social influence in order to determine how they will fit (or not) into the scientific ecosystem.
As a doctoral student at the University of Southern California in occupational science, an emerging discipline dedicated to the study of occupation, I found this book to be a great discussion starter on change and progress of systematized knowledge seeking. In many ways, studying occupation (meaningful activity that structures our lives) has been encouraged to fit nicely into classical scientific categories such as psychology or biomedicine. Kuhn's work helps to explain why there exists a push for category fitting by analyzing past and current patterns of scientific exploration and knowledge seeking.
Kuhn employs many examples from the history of natural sciences which may not be familiar to all, making readability somewhat difficult. The writing style is philosophical and can be a bit dense at times. In addition, Kuhn uses some of his key phrases in subtly inconsistent ways. For example, the use of the concept of paradigm is seemingly evolving and changing throughout the course of the essay. Kuhn attempted to clarify, or at least summarize, his multiple uses of 'paradigm' in the Postscript added to the second edition in 1969. However, the postscript is written in fashion with the previous chapters and is, therefore, intrinsically complex. Nonetheless, the concept of `paradigm' helps us to understand the evolution of knowledge as a discrete stair stepping-like process.
Overall, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is a worthy read for arousing questions on a topic we often prefer not to question, that is, how knowledge is generated. A book that was originally published in 1962 and is still being published and talked about is always a good reading list item, even if just to satisfy one's curiosity. I think many readers will find the content of this work provocative in that it challenges us to carefully analyze our acceptance of scientific methods, while the mixed science-philosophy style of writing is stirring and challenging. As for those scientists in socialization, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is an important insight on the scientific world into which one is being socialized.
Kuhn, T. S., (1996) April 22, 2009
Omotunde Pusey (USA)
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
Very Good Condition, I ordered 1 book, but I received 2 books and was charged for the extra one.
The most over rated, and the most underrated book about the history of science April 15, 2009
G. Edel (N.Y.)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Kuhn's work presaged the founding of the modern social studies of science, both diametrically opposed to the teleological progressive view prevalent at the time, and grossly teleological to a modern reader this work had a huge influence both academically and in the popular media. It was the first work to popularize the idea of pre-formation of scientific ideas by preceding ideas, and popularized the term paradigm as a way to talk about the cohesiveness and resilience of social beliefs. Kuhn has said since the success of this work that he wishes that people would stop reading and talking about it, I am certainly glad that I did and I recommend it to anyone who is willing to dig through the dense volume.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 131
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