The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses history and scientific theories that may be problematic to or not inclusive of certain views and religions.

“Particularly, I was struck by the number and extent of the overt disagreements between social scientists about the nature of legitimate scientific problems and methods. Both history and acquaintance made me doubt that practitioners of the natural sciences possess firmer or more permanent answers to such questions than their colleagues in social science. Yet, somehow, the practice of astronomy, physics, chemistry, or biology normally fails to evoke the controversies over fundamentals that today often seem endemic among, say, psychologists or sociologists. Attempting to discover the source of that difference led me to recognize the role in scientific research of what I have since called ‘paradigms.’”

In this quote, Kuhn implies that science is distinct from other fields of research in that it is characterized by a general feeling of consensus. As he explains in later chapters of the book, this consensus is established by prevailing paradigms, which coordinate scientists towards pursuing solutions to shared problems. It is this consensus that makes reactions to revolutions so severe, however.

“Gradually, and often without entirely realizing they are doing so, historians of science have begun to ask new sorts of questions and to trace different, and often less than cumulative, developmental lines for the sciences. Rather than seeking the permanent contributions of an older science to our present vantage, they attempt to display the historical integrity of that science in its own time.”

Here, Kuhn points out that the history of science can illuminate a discrepancy in the usual portrayal of scientific progress. Scientific progress, he argues, is not cumulative. This sets up the concept of The Nature of Scientific Revolutions. Kuhn positions history as a useful tool to examine the cyclical patterns of science.

“At least in the mature sciences, answers (or full substitutes for answers) to questions like these are firmly embedded in the educational initiation that prepares and licenses the student for professional practice. Because that education is both rigorous and rigid, these answers come to exert a deep hold on the scientific mind. That they can do so does much to account both for the peculiar efficiency of the normal research activity and for the direction in which it proceeds at any given time.”

Kuhn continually describes science education as rigid. Notably, he does not see this rigidity as detrimental to scientific progress; rather, he sees it as a necessary driver of said progress. His argument, while seemingly critical, actually celebrates the work of “normal science.” This quote also illustrates Kuhn’s focus on the social and psychological aspects of scientific work. He points out that scientists are often resistant to paradigm shifts due, in part, to the rigidity of their scientific education.