Redefining Reality - The Intellectual Implications of Modern Science

writings of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, who posited new worlds
at the bottom of the ocean, on the Moon, and back in time. It was a
period of great discoveries, and the uncertainty associated with seeing
that the world contains things we had never seen before was jarring.
In his 1962 book , Thomas
Kuhn notes that when we think of the archetype of the scientist, the
people who come to mind are Newton, Darwin, and Einstein. But
science as it is done on a daily basis by working scientists is not
Einstein are revolutionary scientists whose work is different in kind
from what Kuhn calls “normal science.” Normal science is quite the
opposite of revolutionary.
Normal scientists work within a paradigm that tells them what
to answer such questions, and what counts as a legitimate answer.
In other words, normal science occurs when someone poses a
question deemed meaningful by the paradigm and uses the tools
within the paradigm.
Scientists do not question the paradigm. They teach their students
how to act according to it, and challenging it is considered a
challenge to rationality itself. Rationality, Kuhn argues, exists
only within the paradigm. Because the paradigm tells us what is
real and how it works, to question it is to question the structure of
the world itself; according to those within the paradigm, that leads
to nonsense.
Occasionally, however, anomalies pop up. There are questions
the paradigm accepts as legitimate, but when the proper tools are
applied, the answer fails to be one the paradigm recognizes. The
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