Bond Theory

Scientific Revolutions

Last Page
Menu	Index
Time Line	exit

Thomas Kuhn in his influential book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, describes the role of what he calls "paradigms" in scientific research. Kuhn portrays scientific development as a "series of tradition-bound periods punctuated by noncumulative breaks." The tradition-bound periods are called "normal science."

The breaks during which scientists discard one paradigm and adopt another are called
revolutions. Some of the characteristics of a scientific revolution are described below.

1. People do not leave normal science readily. Revolutions usually are preceded by periods of crisis. When a crisis arises in the community there is a common awareness that something has gone wrong. The crisis must be resolved before normal science can resume.

2. Inventions of new paradigms almost always are achieved by young persons or scientists new to a field. They often are never accepted by older persons who have a vested interest in the old paradigm.

3. To be accepted, a new paradigm must have most of the problem-solving capability of the old paradigm and, at the same time, help resolve whatever has gone wrong with the old one. It is particularly persuasive if the new paradigm opens up new research areas that were not obvious before.

Paradigms are theories and beliefs that are shared by members of a scientific community, for example chemists. "Men whose research is based on shared paragdigms are committed to the same rules and standards for scientific practice" (14).

Normal science is a tradition-bound period in the development of science. Most scientific acivities are "normal"--research seldom leads to revolutions. One of the main functions of chemistry courses is to survey the theories, methods, and beliefs that are shared by present-day chemists--the paradigms of modern "normal chemistry."

Revolutions occur infrequently. Most of the history of science decribes normal science--periods in which theories work quite well. It is only when its theories prove too unsuccessful in describing physical phenomena or when too many unanticipated resutls are obtained from experiments that scientific field is ripe for revolution.

In periods of crisis the shared paradigms lead to anomalites. A few descrepancies usually are ignored--no theory works perfectly and scientists don't have time to worry about every little problem they encouter. On the other hand too may discrepancies may occur to be ignored or a magor dicrpancy may arise that is so significant that it cannot be swept under the rug: either of these could precipitate a crisis.

Max Planck, one of the founding fathers of the quantum theory, once remarked that "a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die" (5).