Evolving scientific paradigms: Retrospective and prospective

Abstract

It is well known that the contemporary concept of scientific paradigm arrived on the scientific and philosophical scene in 1962 with the publication of Thomas Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions. The book became enormously popular and soon it was common to find it on the syllabi of university undergraduate and graduate courses. In scientific and philosophical circles, the publication reignited a long simmering debate and turned it into a raging firestorm of criticism and countercriticism (see, e.g., Lakatos & Musgrave, 1970). Partially, the debate was about the introduction of sociological matters into the body of scientific theory and method, and partially, it was about the nature of scientific change itself (e.g., normal vs. revolutionary science, scientific crises, anomalies, gestalt switches).