The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions was a landmark work in the history of science; indeed, it is one of the most cited books, especially in the social sciences. His main argument in this book is that science is inextricably set within a paradigm: a framework of rules, definitions, and assumptions that allow for a coherent body of knowledge. As science progresses, however, anomalies arise such that scientists must work to patch up the paradigm. Eventually, a pioneering scientist will resolve the anomalies by constructing a whole new paradigm, forcing observed phenomena into a more coherent model.

This is all pretty abstract. The commonly cited paradigm shifts are of course the Copernican revolution and the development of quantum mechanics. Newtonian physics was going fine until anomalies like black body radiation and the photoelectric effect led Einstein, Planck, Boltzmann, and others to propose that energy comes in discrete units. But this theory of quantum mechanics was heresy for a long time while scientists struggled to move from one paradigm to another. Paradigm shifts are fundamental changes in the way scientists think because they undermine so many assumptions in how the world operates.

Indeed, if science progresses in such a fashion, I think I would want to work at understanding the paradigm, the assumptions, and the framework. "Normal science" (as Kuhn calls it) working within a paradigm elucidating knowledge about the world is interesting, but real brilliance comes out when things don't make sense. It is easy enough to make predictions about how an experiment will play out given the rules that you know, but it takes guts and insight to figure out how to make a whole new set of rules to explain what you have.