The framework, famously articulated by Thomas Kuhn, that science doesn't progress smoothly but through violent revolutions. A scientific paradigm is the constellation of beliefs, values, and techniques shared by a community—it's the rulebook everyone agrees to play by during "normal science." This theory states that when too many anomalies break the rules, a crisis leads to a paradigm shift, where the old rulebook is burned and a new one is written. What was heresy becomes textbook truth.
Theory of Scientific Paradigms Example: For centuries, astronomy played by the Ptolemaic paradigm rulebook (Earth at the center). Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo were rule-breakers who kept pointing out anomalies. The crisis led to the Copernican paradigm shift—a scientific revolution where the Sun took center stage. Suddenly, the old "obvious truth" became a historical curiosity, and the heretics became the founding fathers of a new game.
by Abzugal Nammugal Enkigal February 6, 2026
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