The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, by Thomas Kuhn, Abstract

Here I make a short summary on the book "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" by Thomas Kuhn.

Three basic approaches of the text

A. The scientific theories are not just the result of an accumulation of knowledge or a linear projection of evolutionary science, they are conditioned by historical circumstances of the moment and come to prevail Continue Reading ... when they are accepted by the scientific community that somehow rearrange the comments to the theory raised so that it exists, and having what is called normal science. When this re-accommodation is no longer possible, and it is difficult to explain certain phenomena based on this paradigm, as happened with the theory "geocentric" for example, must be changed and then science extraordinary happens and with it a change of paradigm.

B. The paradigm is seen as universally recognized scientific achievements that for a while provide concrete solutions to specific problems within a discipline and serve as a model for resolving problems for researchers.

C. With each change of paradigm change the world itself and the data we get from him. The new theories are not, therefore, mere extensions of the old, but that shape radically different world views.

Final Comment

Trying to explain the structure of scientific revolutions based on paradigms, as Kuhn poses, comes to mean a break with the old world view of linear progress and cumulative took into the modern age of science. That the world as a switch to change the paradigms is difficult to assimilate and so hard to believe, but the same history of science speech, and Kuhn has taken advantage of this resource to substantiate its argument. That science is not alien to its historical and cultural moment is to understand that progress in science, understood from the paradigm shift, responds to the fact that our needs as human beings, whether scientific, political, social, authoritarian or globalization and enrichment are over any claim arising naive that science is advancing at the expense of historic moments. It is likely that no conflict as the two world wars normal science we know today would not be equal. To have the opportunity to live a paradigm shift and we can recognize and accept is something the same time will tell.