paradigm

[JCWisc at aol.com]

Concerning the recent discussion of Gould, "paradigm shifts," etc., here's a 
chunk of the classic text.

Jacob Conrad

-----------------

Thomas S. Kuhn, _The Structure of Scientific Revolutions_, 2nd edition, U. of 
Chicago Press, 1970

Ch. II, "The Route to Normal Science", pp. 10 - 11

In this essay, "normal science" means research firmly based upon one or more 
past scientific achievements, achievements that some particular scientific 
community acknowledges for a time as supplying the foundation for its further 
practice.  Today, such achievements are recounted, though seldom in their 
original form, by science textbooks, elementary and advanced.  These 
textbooks expound the body of accepted theory...  Before such books became 
popular...many of the famous classics of science fulfilled a similar 
function.  Aristotle's Physica, Ptolemy's Almagest...these and many other 
works served for a time implicitly to define the legitimate problems and 
methods of a research field for succeeding generations of practitioners.  
They were able to do so because they shared two essential characteristics.  
Their achievement was sufficiently unprecedented to attract an enduring group 
of adherents away from competing modes of scientific activity.  
Simultaneously, it was sufficiently open-ended to leave all sorts of problems 
for...practitioners to resolve.

Achievements that share these two characteristics I shall henceforth refer to 
as "paradigms," a term that relates closely to "normal science."... These are 
the traditions which the historian describes under such rubrics as "Ptolemaic 
astronomy"...and so on. The study of paradigms...is what mainly prepares the 
student for membership in the particular scientific community with which he 
[sic] will later practice...  Men [sic] whose research is based on shared 
paradigms are committed to the same rules and standards for scientific 
practice.