Philosophical Issue of Science

. . .achievements that some particular scientific community acknowledges for a time as supplying the foundation for its further practice (10).

Paradigms are achievements sharing two characteristics Kuhn identifies as essential: 1) their achievement was sufficiently unprecedented to attract an enduring group of adherents away from competing modes of scientific activity, and 2) the achievement was sufficiently open-ended to leave all sorts of problems for the redefined group of practitioners to resolve. Kuhn notes that by accepting this term, paradigm, he means to suggest that some accepted examples of scientific practice provide models producing particular coherent traditions of scientific research. If the two essential characteristics are fulfilled, competing paradigms would indeed be incommensurable, for each would be unprecedented and open-ended. To be unprecedented alone means that the two would be incommensurable, for they would have very different modes of scientific activity. To be open-ended would also prevent their being compared closely, for each would have questions that would lead their adherents in different

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losophers and religionists were once the primary group concerned with issues of human origin and development, a role also assumed by scientists once the scientific method of inquiry was developed. Charles Darwin offered in On the Origin of Species a new paradigm for human development, a new view of the cause of biological phenomena observed in nature. Darwin's view was strong and had a profound effect on the intellectual currents of his time, so much so that Darwinian ideas were applied not only to biological phenomena but also to social theory and the newly created science of psychology. At the same time, much about Darwin's theory is only little understood by the general public, often in distorted or misrepresented form. Simplistic statements referring to such ideas as "survival of the fittest" only partially explain what Darwin meant, and the application of his ideas in other areas, especially in sociology, has produced a number of false theories and unfortunate public policies. As a causal explanation for biological phenomena, Darwin only explains the mechanism of the cause, not what we might consider the reason. In doing so, he enters into an old argument in philosophy. Human beings have from the beginning tried to
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Thomas Kuhn, Origin Species, Prime Mover, Social Darwinism, Ernst Mayr, University Chicago, God Darwin's, Voyage Beagle, origin species, normal science, biological phenomena, University Press, explanation biological, subject matter, scientific inquiry, competing paradigms, Charles Darwin, nature scientific, nature scientific inquiry, subject matter science, scientific activity, modes scientific, causal explanation biological, explanation biological phenomena, modes scientific activity,
Approximate Word count = 2483
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page)

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