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A paradigm shift is a fundamental change in the basic concepts and experimental practices of a scientific discipline.It is a concept in the philosophy of science that was introduced and brought into the common lexicon by the American physicist and philosopher Thomas Kuhn.
The enormous impact of Kuhn's work can be measured in the changes it brought about in the vocabulary of the philosophy of science: besides "paradigm shift", Kuhn popularized the word paradigm itself from a term used in certain forms of linguistics and the work of Georg Lichtenberg to its current broader meaning, coined the term "normal science ...
The Oxford English Dictionary defines a paradigm as "a pattern or model, an exemplar; a typical instance of something, an example". [11] The historian of science Thomas Kuhn gave the word its contemporary meaning when he adopted the word to refer to the set of concepts and practices that define a scientific discipline at any particular period of time.
The paradigm shift does not merely involve the revision or transformation of an individual theory, it changes the way terminology is defined, how the scientists in that field view their subject, and, perhaps most significantly, what questions are regarded as valid, and what rules are used to determine the truth of a particular theory.
Paradigms are very hard to change, but there are no limits to paradigm change. Meadows indicates paradigms might be changed by repeatedly and consistently pointing out anomalies and failures in the current paradigm to those with open minds. A current paradigm is "Nature is a stock of resources to be converted to human purpose".
Kuhn's idea of paradigm shifts offers a broader critique of logical positivism, arguing that it is not simply individual theories but whole worldviews that must occasionally shift in response to evidence. [3] Postpositivism is not a rejection of the scientific method, but rather a reformation of positivism to meet these critiques.
Thanks to demographics, U.S. companies are facing an historic talent drain. The solution is to move past ageism in the workplace to retain and recruit older employees.
Thomas Kuhn [10] described how a paradigm shift is a wholesale shift in the basic understanding of a scientific theory. Examples in science include the change of thought from miasma to germ theory as a cause of disease. Building on this work, Giovanni Dosi [11] developed the concept of 'technical paradigms' and 'technological trajectories'. In ...