The Science and Practice of Landscape Ecology

Abstract

In his essay, “Second thoughts on paradigms,” Thomas Kuhn (1974) illustrated the power of paradigm shifts in the sciences with an analogy to the child's puzzle in which one is asked to find the animal shapes or faces hidden in a drawing of shrubbery or clouds. The child, Kuhn observed, “seeks forms that are like those of the animals or faces he knows. Once they are found, they do not again retreat into the background, for the child's way of seeing the picture has been changed.” In the same way, a shift in paradigms changes forever the way scientists view the phenomena they study. Previous theories and methodologies are replaced by new ones. This change is more than a simple shift in emphasis—the scientific worldview and, ultimately, the way scientists conduct their investigations have been altered.