The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
by Thomas S. Kuhn

XIII - Progress Through .

In the face of the arguments made, why does science progress, how does it progress, and what is the nature of its progress?

To a very great extent, the term science is reserved for fields that do progress in ways. But does a field make progress because it is a science, or is it a science because it makes progress? science progresses because the enterprise shares certain salient characteristics. Members of a scientific work from a single or from a closely related set. Very rarely do different scientific the same problems. The result of successful work is progress.

Even if we argue that a field does not make progress, that does not mean that an school or discipline within that field does not. The man who argues that has made no progress emphasises that there are still Aristotelians, not that Aristotelianism has failed to progress. It is only during of science that progress seems both and . In part, this progress is in the eye of the beholder. The absence of competing that question each other's aims and standards makes the progress of a -scientific far easier to see. The acceptance of a frees the from the need to re-examine its first and . Members of the can on the subtlest and most esoteric of the that concern it. Because scientists work only for an audience of , an audience that shares values and beliefs, a single set of standards can be taken for . Unlike in other disciplines, the scientist need not problems because they urgently need solution and without regard for the tools available to solve them. The social scientists tend to defend their choice of a research problem chiefly in terms of the social importance of a solution. Which group would one then expect to solve problems at a more rapid rate? .

We may have to relinquish the , or , that changes of carry scientists and those who learn from them closer and closer to the truth. The developmental described by Kuhn is a of from primitive beginnings. It is a whose stages are characterised by an increasingly detailed and understanding of nature. This is not a of toward anything. Important questions arise. Must there be a set by nature in advance? Does it really help to imagine that there is some one full, , true account of nature? Is the proper measure of scientific the extent to which it brings us closer to an ? The that relates the of organisms to the of scientific ideas "is nearly perfect". The of is the by within the scientific of the fittest way to practice future science. The net result of a of such , separated by of , is the wonderfully set of instruments we call modern scientific knowledge. stages in that developmental are marked by an increase in articulation and specialisation. The without benefit of a set and without of any permanent fixed scientific truth. What must the world be like in order than man may know it?

(A Synopsis from the orginal by Professor Frank Pajares, Emory University)