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In chapter five of "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" by Thomas Kuhn, we explore the relationships between rules, paradigms and normal science. According to Kuhn, normal science is the ideas a scientific community agrees upon for a time which serves as the foundation for the future practice of that particular field. Normal science is comprised of paradigms that shape the methodological and theoretical approaches towards the research conducted by these scientists. Without the paradigm, you would have much trouble in the selection, evaluation, and criticism of the research which you are conducting because the paradigm serves as the foundation for the research itself. Therefore, the paradigm gives rise to a set of rules which the research must use to guide them and must abide too. However, Kuhn claims that determination of a specific set of rules are often difficult to distinguish amongst practitioners of the same field because scientists can interpret a paradigm differently. Once established, these scientists spread their own interpretation to others if through tacit knowledge. Which is characteristic of scientific mentorship either through academia or industry. I strongly agree with Kuhn, we scientists learn in environments where technoscientific practical knowledge are taught in tandem with theoretical knowledge. You would be hard-pressed to find a textbook that indicates the theory behind high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) without immediately finding out about its potential teleology. The modern field of chemistry is notorious for doing this because of how ingrained technology, theory and practical lab abilities all intertwine into a monolithic idea of "chemistry" that is passed down from professor to student. We are all human and have our own interpretations of the "best" way to approach a given inquiry or set of problems. Therefore, what Dr. Ooms teaches us in the lab may be different to what Dr. X teaches in Beijing, China in terms of how to approach certain issues that arise in practical work or theory.

Student	Question
Carmen	During the last class, Dr. Peet mentioned the beginning of psychology and the fact that when it was “pre-paradigm” there was just arguing about the basic concepts and that there was no science going on. It seemed to me that he was saying that science cannot happen if there is no paradigm that you are working under. I think that the arguing in the beginning stages and trying the find basic concepts would have been a type of science, because they would have needed evidence as to why they should establish those beliefs as the paradigm. They should all be doing science to figure out the path they will take for “normal science.” If there is no science that can happen while under pre-paradigm conditions, then I would also argue that having paradigms and problem solving is not a bad thing- paradigms give us an opportunity to look for something deeper and more precise. With that said, I do not think that you should limit yourself to certain constraints within the paradigm, especially if you think that there is something better that will solve all the anomalies. So my question is whether Kuhn is saying what I think he is saying that we shouldn’t have paradigms because among other things it creates a “normal science” and puzzle solving attitude. Or that we should have paradigms because without them, science cannot be accomplished?
Keith	As I look at the history of science laid out in Kuhn’s book, I see the pattern he is showing us. Throughout this story, we continually see examples of “normal science” plugging away at the work of articulating the paradigm through which they were seeing their world. Invariably science tends to find anomalies which cannot be stuffed into the box allowed by the existing paradigm. We learn that “normal science does not aim at novelties of fact or theory and, when successful, finds none. New and unsuspected phenomena are, however, repeatedly uncovered by scientific research and radical new theories have again and again been invented by scientists.” With that being understood, though those in Newton’s, Copernicus’s, or Lavoisier’s eras didn’t have the defined sciences, there must have been the feeling of certainty that the “science” of the time was indisputable. Newton’s “laws” would certainly suggest that there is some weight to that sentiment. So, it would be reasonable to expect that if the same terminology of science were available to them then, they would likely have labeled their respective fields of research “mature” science. Kuhn even suggests that in the day, Astronomy would have been considered a mature science. So my question is, then, how do we define a mature science? I have heard biology referred to as a mature science during the same class where is was mentioned that the “central dogma” of biology exposes them to the potential for a major paradigm shift in the future. At least as I understood it, that aspect of biology (something well over my head) is widely held to be false, but there is no better explanation. Please tell me if I am wrong. If that is the case, then having an established and unquestioned paradigm would seem not to be the defining characteristic of a mature science. Additionally, if Newton was challenging the paradigm of Ptolemy in what Kuhn describes as a mature science, then even looking back and seeing that the paradigm was wrong does not exclude the field from qualifying as a mature science. So what, then, is the definition of a mature science, when does it become so, and upon which criteria is the distinction based? Further, what assumptions are made when presented with a loaded term like mature science? Is that term beneficial or detrimental to the discussion of anomalies that may arise? Will the weight of that term more compel you to think that the red six of spades is no different than any of the other cards which were presented to you?
Maxwell
Paula	Last class we discussed the meaning of “paradigm” and the whole idea that it is not a theory but instead it is the results of a community of people who come together and investigate certain topics, and so there is basically an absolute truth just different ways to perceive it. and so, how can a paradigm be considering as one? And not just because of the one applied? I mean if there is different “perceptions” how can you know that what you are seeing or perceiving is just the product of an already establish paradigm? And I know that in theory as scientist we don’t really create paradigms, we just basically work with the ones already establish following its rules and principles. In this cases the results of a normal investigation are important, since they contribute to the already existing paradigms, but as Kuhn points out scientist focus mainly in the problems that come out even when the rules are being follow. He also says that; “normal science does not aim at novelties of fact or theory and, when successful, finds none. New and unsuspected phenomena are, however, repeatedly uncovered by scientific research, and radical new theories have again and again been invented by scientist” he says, that there is indeed new discoveries but called “ new theories” so, the new discoveries can cause all sorts of disagreements and eventually changes in the science field because the perception of a paradigm gets shifted.
Cacey	In Chapter 4, Kuhn describes what drives people to do science even as they realize certain things they had thought about it were not true. He suggests that people do science to solve puzzles, that “[t]hough intrinsic value is no criterion for a puzzle, the assured existence of a solution is. (Kuhn 37)” He goes on to say that social problems have no place in science and that scientists should only be focused on testing established knowledge and those problems that can be turned into puzzles. However, many people go into the sciences or become certain scientific professionals because they want to solve a certain social problem. Is he suggesting that these people, once in the sciences, will no longer be focusing on these social problems, but whatever similar thing that involves solving a puzzle or ‘low-hanging fruit’ as some say? Is there really no place for solving social problems in science or any problems that have ‘intrinsic value’? Later in Chapter 4, Kuhn talks about how a scientist is driven to solve puzzles and even to find the answer to already solved problem in a better way than was done before, that scientists are driven to be the best at solving puzzles. However, I was wondering if scientists are really only caring about solving problems that can be turned into puzzles or being the best at solving at one puzzle, then how do we know if we are progressing in knowledge? Couldn’t someone become so focused on solving a certain puzzle that no one wonders if the puzzles that they are solving have any general importance for the rest of society or have practical applications? Is science then not something that has to have a practical application to real life? How can this be? What if one’s interpretation is incongruent with most others, but they adamantly defend their stance (like Halton Arp)? In some ways, this seems like the view of “you are entitled to your own opinion, as long as it fits in and agrees with everyone else’s”. On the rare occasion that a differing interpretation or an anomaly leads to a legitimate paradigm shift, how do these instances pass through the grate of “normal discoveries” and allow for further testing?
Sharleigh
Trevor
Emily	One of the things a scientific community acquires with a paradigm is a criterion for choosing problems that, while the paradigm is taken for granted, can be assumed to have solutions” pg 37. This bothered me. The idea that there is a right answer; that the world exists in, complicated though it may be, one true way of being, and that our job as scientists is to discover how that way of being is. It’s the idea that there is absolute truth that exists, and now, simply needs to be uncovered. Yet we fill our scientific fields (I’m thinking particularly about chemistry) with complementary models of the way things are. Each model works well for explaining a phenomenon or two, but fall short at explaining others. And no one model can explain all of them. The idea being that none of them are 100% accurate at explaining the way the molecules exist in reality, and that the job of a chemist is to develop models that are more and more accurate. Our current Models are seen as a stepping stone to uncovering that truth. But on page 24 Kuhn wrote that natural science is, “an attempt to force nature into the preformed and relatively inflexible box that the paradigm supplies’. No part of the aim of normal science is to call forth new sorts of phenomena; indeed those that will not fit in to the box are often not seen at all.” Not only is Kuhn saying that the paradigm dictates what kind of questions science is allowed to ask, but as page 24 suggests, the paradigm also tells us how to interpret the data we collect. It defines what counts as legitimate data and what is hogwash. With these restrictions, of course our belief in a paradigms correctness will continue to grow, because it defines what is correct. Kuhn compares normal science to puzzle solving on page 38 saying “If it is to classify as a puzzle, a problem must be characterized by more than an assured solution. There must also be rules that limit both the nature of acceptable solutions and steps by which they are to be obtained.” This, I think, is the main flaw with normal science. We have SO much faith in the scientific method, we have established it as a means of being objective, when really the method is subjective to the paradigm. We have set the standards that legitimize science; and if anything falls short it is discarded as un-factual, and therefore not true. But we have set those standards from within the paradigm, so basically anything that opposes it is seen as un factual. However, this being what it is, Normal science is still useful. Kuhn acknowledges that it is, “…eminently successful in its aim; the steady extension of the scope and precision of scientific knowledge” pg 52. If everything exists in its own absolute way of being, if there is a perfect model that explains all the phenomena seen in chemistry, so perfect it wouldn’t be a model, it would simply be the way it is, normal science appears to provides us with the knowledge to refine our models and slowly shift paradigms until we eventually figure it out. However, I think this is a fundamental flaw with science. How do we know that there is one ultimate answer? The scientific method plants the idea that the correct answer is the way it actually is, and that all other explanations are wrong; Useful as stepping stones towards the right answer, but never the less, wrong. I think that this idea is unfounded. How do we know that there is only one right answer? Why can’t there be more than one? This is tied in to the idea that science is progressive. If our current models are stepping stones, and we know there is a final destination to be reached we feel like we’re still moving forward. But if you open your mind to the idea that there quite probably isn’t a final destination or ultimate explanation, it suddenly stops looking like progress. Now instead of moving forward, we’re just shifting from one kind of truth to another. And that can be a little scary.
Stuart	In chapter 4 Kuhn talks about how “normal science” treats Paradigms as an absolute puzzle which has to be applied, reasoned, and explained after usually after the fact. Because of this there is an inherit rigidness to this worldview, but is there possibly a benefit to this rigidness? As discussed in chapter 6 this rigidness creates the anomalies and the novelties of the paradigm very apparent but doesn’t acknowledge them all too eagerly. Could there be a better way of which science should view paradigms to increase the efforts to try and include and explain these anomalies? Is there some sort of middle ground? or is viewing the paradigms of sciences just the matter of choosing the lesser of two evils? In chapter 5 Kuhn mentions how scientists in two different field can view the same apparently same paradigm in two different lights. This suggests that their views are created through the constructs of their different academic paths which begs the question: What are the limits to educating through the lens of a certain paradigm? In Chapter 6 Kuhn discusses how the “re-tooling” of science and emergence of new theories usually come after scientific crisis. Why don’t we acknowledge these sooner? Is the habitual focus on a certain paradigm the reason for neglecting anomalies until necessity calls? If so How can we try and “retool” our scientific knowledge pre-emptively?
Keshia
Breanna
Wes	The existence of paradigms creates an interesting potential existential crisis for scientists. By acknowledging the existence and effects of paradigms (from grandiose theories, to the resulting bias in instruments and experimental design that set-up the result of research to meet previous expectations) we acknowledge that we are currently living in a paradigm that may have an expiry date. Accepting that we may be living in a temporary paradigm, what should our response be as scientists and as the general public? With all the trust our current culture places in science, what would happen with a large paradigm shift? I would hazard to guess that most people are mostly invested in the technosciences whose results would not be undermined by any paradigm shift. This would leave the average person indifferent to most paradigm shifts as their everyday lives won’t be drastically changed. But do scientists have a different responsibility? As scientists, do we just continue to tow the line of normal science, regardless of its potential to be rendered obsolete? Historically, there’s a pretty clear pattern Kuhn has described of paradigm shifts that render the previous ideas irrelevant…if there’s a chance that upheaval renders our pursuit of knowledge irrelevant…do we change our behavior? What would that look like? We can’t just stop doing everything because it might be pointless, yet at the same time it seems foolish to just bury our heads in the sand and carry on. Having gained this information, should it influence action? Or is it just a token – enrichment added to life by expanding our worldview?
Billy	My question for this part of the chapter revolves around the set of rules and how a revolution can essentially change these rules. For a rule to change in one part of a field but to not affect another part in a slightly different field confuses me a bit. Is this essentially like let’s say a car with the brake pads. Every manufacturer has a slightly different way of doing things, and slightly different specifications on them, however they all do the same purpose and that is to stop the car. So is Kuhn essentially saying that while a small revolution could be ground-breaking and completely change the ideals of one field and may influence parts of your field, because you are following that and other guidelines or rules, that that doesn’t affect you as much as it would someone else? Take for example at the end of chapter 5, when they talk to the chemist and a physicist and asked whether hydrogen was an atom. How can we have rules in two different fields that describe one thing, but the answer is different. This is confusing because to be able to make a set of rules on a paradigm would you not need the rules to result in you always concluding the same answer? If 2+2 =4 but in a different set of rule equalled 5 how could you ever know for sure the proper way to describe something? Would it not then make more sense to first attempt to create a complete set of guidelines that overarch all fields so that the work in one field can correlate to another field, and you would understand how they got to the conclusion that they got, with your own principles? Another question I have is at what exact point do we credit someone for making a scientific discovery and how exactly do we credit them? If we cannot credit them until we have made a paradigm shift, then in theory can we only credit them with the discovery in hindsight and not at the time of the discovery? Would it then not be possible to definitively say who exactly came up with the theory, as if we need to shift our paradigm and create new guidelines then would the theory be credited to the person who created that shift, and not the person who first made the discovery? Or should we credit the person who first made the discovery, even though he might not have known the ground-breaking work that his discovery would unlock? How do they exactly decide who gets the credit, and what guideline or rules do they follow to accredit someone for their work?
Rebecca
Emmanuel
Jordan	Chapter IV associates studying normal science with puzzle solving: If a given theory is to be tested (and by extension accepted), then the result of the study should be approximately predictable by the paradigm’s initial rules/standards from which the theory was drawn up. The paradigm in the puzzle analogy isn’t so much the puzzle itself as it is the way in which the puzzle was put together. Obviously, this isn’t a perfect analogy because as we have discussed previously, paradigms can shift (and I’ve never started putting one puzzle together only to find out partway through that the image has changed…). Kuhn also mentions that normal science does not necessarily always be determined by rules (42). Would these exceptions then be a breach in the paradigms walls (i.e. a gap in the paradigm box example we used), a place of overlap (and therefore ambiguous parameters) between the current paradigm and another, rules from an entirely new paradigm waiting to be discovered, or something else altogether? While reading Chapter V, I was reminded of Plato’s Forms, and how different people can attempt to interpret them with meanings they each deem fit (e.g. how Socrates asked Euthyphro how to define “piety”). In the same way, scientists can “agree in their identification of a paradigm without agreeing on… a full interpretation or rationalization of it” (44). Each response can only be described, at best, as an aspect of the true paradigm. The paradigm underlies all existing and potential rules that govern scientific studies, regardless if people are aware of the rules or not. It seems as if the researcher doesn’t need any rules so long as they have a sufficient understanding of the paradigm in which they are operating. How can this be? What if one’s interpretation is incongruent with most others, but they adamantly defend their stance (like Halton Arp)? In some ways, this seems like the view of “you are entitled to your own opinion, as long as it fits in and agrees with everyone else’s”. On the rare occasion that a differing interpretation or an anomaly leads to a legitimate paradigm shift, how do these instances pass through the grate of “normal discoveries” and allow for further testing?
Dustin	Do you agree with the notion that rules of a normal scientific community derive from paradigms, but paradigms can guide research even in the absence of rules? In chapter five of "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" by Thomas Kuhn, we explore the relationships between rules, paradigms and normal science. According to Kuhn, normal science is the ideas a scientific community agrees upon for a time which serves as the foundation for the future practice of that particular field. Normal science is comprised of paradigms that shape the methodological and theoretical approaches towards the research conducted by these scientists. Without the paradigm, you would have much trouble in the selection, evaluation, and criticism of the research which you are conducting because the paradigm serves as the foundation for the research itself. Therefore, the paradigm gives rise to a set of rules which the research must use to guide them and must abide too. However, Kuhn claims that determination of a specific set of rules are often difficult to distinguish amongst practitioners of the same field because scientists can interpret a paradigm differently. Once established, these scientists spread their own interpretation to others if through tacit knowledge. Which is characteristic of scientific mentorship either through academia or industry. I strongly agree with Kuhn, we scientists learn in environments where technoscientific practical knowledge are taught in tandem with theoretical knowledge. You would be hard-pressed to find a textbook that indicates the theory behind high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) without immediately finding out about its potential teleology. The modern field of chemistry is notorious for doing this because of how ingrained technology, theory and practical lab abilities all intertwine into a monolithic idea of "chemistry" that is passed down from professor to student. We are all human and have our own interpretations of the "best" way to approach a given inquiry or set of problems. Therefore, what Dr. Ooms teaches us in the lab may be different to what Dr. X teaches in Beijing, China in terms of how to approach certain issues that arise in practical work or theory.