Evaluate Kuhn’s theory of scientific development

Thomas Samuel Kuhn was born on July 18, 1922, in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States of America. He studied and worked at Harvard, Kuhn was initially a physicist but later changed courses to study the history of science. While a student at Harvard Kuhn wrote the book the Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Paradigm Shift. In this book, Kuhn changed the view of scientific progress and his theory has been by far the most important and influential theory of the history of science since its publication in 1962.Thomas Kuhn brought a new perspective and option to scientific progression. Before Kuhn’s theory, science was taken as a steady and upward progression where theories were added one and another until the desired result is attained, Kuhn saw a series of revolutionary changes of the popular view of other scientist, where the view of one period had very little in common with the previous. Most importantly, Kuhn seek to find if were possibility for science to discover the truth. This essay will look at Thomas Kuhn’s theory of scientific development. It will begin with an explanation of the theory, and then will state some of its impact of science. It will then show and evaluate some weakness of Kuhn’s theory; assessing and mentioning the views of a number of scientists’ academics critical of Kuhn's concept of paradigms. Finally, it will then conclude by arguing that although Kuhn’s theory made us view the social effect of the scientific, it does this to the detriment of scientific rationality and progress which undermines the point of science itself.

Thomas Kuhn theory of Paradigm shift.

Kuhn is known for making the term paradigm popular, he described paradigm as basically a collection of beliefs and theory’s shared by scientists, a set...

... middle of paper ...

...ost cases. He also did not show enough proof or evidence to support most of his major claims. However, Kuhn s conception of normal science seem to have greater value, as it shows generally the methods most scientist use every day do not follow pattern comparable with Kuhn’s claims. Laudan disagree strongly with Kuhn’s claims on paradigm shifts but not in a way that the whole theory need be reduced to nothing. He disagrees mostly on where he focused on the fact that this is mostly the case and that science has never being able to function rationally. Although in some special cases rationality is not the main force, but to say that it never is seems too presumptions. Thus, although Kuhn’s theory made us view the social effect of the scientific community, it does this to the detriment of scientific rationality and progress which undermines the point of science itself.