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The Structure of Scientific Revolutions:

The concept of history has an important place in the developmental process of science.
Scientific developments experienced in the past also affect today's world and a new
generation can produce different studies on these scientific researches. Therefore, we can say
that the scientific process is not something that ends somewhere, but is cyclical, always
intertwined with the past and the future, and has the potential to renew and improve itself. It
would be very wrong to say that scientific developments may come to an end one day. As
long as the human-society and environment trio exists, science will always have the potential
to improve itself and produce new knowledge. In the book it was mentioned that historians
should concern and analyze the developments on science in history and explain the
superstitions and myths that affected the scientific developments.

Each scientist used different scientific methods while trying to perceive the world. Some
have scientifically criticized the lightning strike over electric current, while others have tried
to reduce it to astronomy. On the other hand, different methods and opinions in science should
not be considered independently from each other. Each method and technique combine to
create new scientific laws and help us understand science more comprehensively. Every
branch and technique in science affects each other and is influenced by each other. In this
book, Kuhn actually challenges the idea that science and knowledges develops through
accumulation. New paradigms then ask new questions of old data, move beyond the mere
"puzzle-solving" of the previous paradigm, change the rules of the game and the "map"
directing new research. ‘’The Structure of Scientific Revolutions’’ introduced a realistic
humanism into the core of science, while for others the nobility of science was tarnished by
Kuhn's introduction of an irrational element into the heart of its greatest achievements. Kuhn
reflected on the emergence of scientific discoveries under the influence of historical events,
the nature and progress of scientific revolutions. What kinds of intellectual options and
strategies existed for people in a given period? What types of dictionaries and terminology
were known and used in certain periods? Emphasizing the importance of not attributing
traditional thinking to earlier researchers, Kuhn's book argues that the evolution of scientific
theory emerged not directly from the accumulation of facts, but rather from changing
intellectual conditions and possibilities. Therefore, while trying to understand scientific
theories, the intellectual and social conditions of the period should be studied, not a cluster of
piles. Scientific revolutions can be explained when the conditions of each period are examined
in detailed.

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İrem DURMUŞ
21794483

Kuhn saw that scientific theory was paradigm-driven, not that it proceeded linearly from an
objective, unbiased accumulation of all available data. A famous example of a revolution in
scientific thought is the Copernican Revolution. Yet Copernicus' model required more cycles
and epic cycles than existed in the Ptolemy model available at the time, and due to the lack of
accuracy in calculations, his model did not seem to provide more accurate predictions than the
Ptolemy model. Copernicus's contemporaries rejected his cosmology, and Kuhn claims they
were quite right in doing so: Copernicus's cosmology lacked credibility. Kuhn shows how a
paradigm shift is possible when Galileo Galilei put forward his new ideas about the
movement. Later, Newton showed that Kepler's three laws can be derived from a single theory
of motion and planetary motion. Newton consolidated and consolidated the paradigm shift
initiated by Galileo and Kepler. According to Kuhn, the scientific paradigms that precede and
follow a paradigm shift are so different that their theories cannot be measured - the new
paradigm cannot be proven or disproved by the rules of the old paradigm, and vice versa.
According to Kuhn, it is not possible to construct a neutral language that can be used to make
a neutral comparison between conflicting paradigms, because the terms used themselves are
an integral part of the relevant paradigms, and therefore have different connotations in each
paradigm. While the new paradigm is rarely as comprehensive as the old paradigm in its early
stages, it must still make significant promise for future problem solving. As a result, although
new paradigms rarely or never possess all the abilities of their predecessors, they usually
retain much of the most tangible parts of past success and always allow for additional
concrete problem solving.

To summarize, Kuhn has shown with this work that the theories of Copernicus, Newton and
Einstein are independent and incommensurate with each other. According to Kuhn, there was
no fixed accumulation of reality in the form of objective information about our physical
universe. Instead, one conceptual pattern or worldview was randomly replaced by another,
with each theory breaking away from the previous theory in a revolutionary way. Kuhn used
the word "paradigm" to describe this conceptual pattern. The Paradigm formulation described
here is a whole consisting of facts, theories, methods and assumptions that allow researchers
to isolate data, develop their theories and solve problems. According to Kuhn, the main
feature of a paradigm is that it has its own rules and illuminates its own realities within this
framework. Because such a paradigm is self-affirming, it tends to be resistant to change.

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