Thomas KuhnÆs theory of scientific revolution encompasses a repetitive and ongoing cyclical process that involves three stages: normal science; crisis; and scientific revolution. It is during the stage of normal science that scientists work from paradigms, a generally accepted framework, theory, or way of doing things within a particular discipline. This stage equates to a period of relative stability during which scientists use accepted paradigms while continuing to search for anomalies or crises that contradict these paradigms. When experimentation reveals new findings that are anomalous or contradict accepted paradigms, the stage of crisis occurs. This leads to scientific revolution during which additional experimentation reveals new paradigms whose acceptance leads to a new phase of normal science. As Kuhn (1970) argues in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, ôparadigms are not corrigible by normal science at allànormal science ultimately leads only to the recognition of anomalies and crisesö (p. 122). The process of scientific revolution described by Kuhn results in greater insights and understanding in science that provide scientists with a new way of viewing or doing things. This analysis will discuss a number of Web sites that either support or refute KuhnÆs theory of scientific revolution.
Throughout history, scientific revolutions have occurred that bear out KuhnÆs theory. In physics, the revolutions associated with Copernicus, Newton, and Einstein illustrate his three-stage proves of revolutions. However, the leading paradigms each of these physicists undermined were not quickly replaced. This is because, as Moloney (2000) argues, when a particular paradigm guides normal science there are forces that tend to keep it in vogue, from scientist bias to reluctance to experiment outside of accepted paradigm parameters: ôMost of normal science consists of problem-solving rather than research into fundament...