THOMAS KUHN ‘S THEORY ON THE STRUCTURE OF THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION

Introduction

Scientific revolution has been the major course of scientific research as every scientist tries to question previous findings by other scientists or tries to modify the findings to meet the changing times in human life and even advancement in technology. Thomas Kuhn was no different from other scientists when he tried to explain to his best of knowledge what he thought was the major cause in scientific revolution. He explains that several factors could have led to the disparities in research findings in the past. These factors include; the kind of ideas that drove the scientists at the time to do particular research and also the kind of terminologies they used to explain their unique findings. For example Isaac Newton could not use the current words used to describe his findings. Newton knew that there was a force that was responsible for moving objects down words but could not use the term force of gravity.

Kuhn’s Opinion.

In describing the scientific evolutions, Kuhn asserts that scientific discipline consists of three phases, immature science phase, normal science phase and scientific evolution phase. All these phases progress from one to another and he describes the first phase, immature science as a science which neither gives a description of a specific scientific problem nor offers any experimental procedure that can be followed to either identify the problem or offer solution to the problem. He describes normal science as a phase that is guided by scientific principles (Paradigms) which entails identifying any particular scientific problem, determining how an experiment to help solve the problem can be set up, stating how observations are supposed to be made and how the results found are supposed to be interpreted to help determine if the said problem has been solved or not. Therefore in this phase Kuhn emphasizes the need for accuracy in measurements in order to avoid interpretation of wrong results which could compromise on the value of the solution offered. He in fact sees this step as crucial since it can either offer solution to the problem in question or even create more complicated problems.

The third phase is scientific revolution, which Kuhn says occurs as a result of development of new scientific findings on a previous matter or scientific principle. That is, a previous accepted paradigm is overthrown by a new paradigm. Through outlining and describing the three phases in science, Kuhn clearly explains why science work will continue and new findings will always come out. Science involves experiments, observations, and interpretation of the observed results in relation to available theories and therefore more data will always be collected and more theories challenging the previous ones as well as more questions will continue to arise which will warrant more answers.