The expression paradigm shift first appeared in 1962 in Thomas Kuhn’s seminal work, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, one of the most important and cited works in all of academia. Kuhn examined the process of how, why and when the scientific establishment embraces new models or paradigms of how the world works. Kuhn claims that in normal science when there is an increasing number of “violations of expectation” i.e. more and more anomalies or aberrations appear that can no longer be explained by the theory, a crisis starts to emerge. When there is another competing model that can better explain these anomalies, then the crisis will turn into a revolution where the establishment will embrace a new theory. It is not a gentle or gradual process according to Kuhn. It has a tectonic effect and creates instability.
Premise: If no emergent theory or model is within grasp to replace the incumbent theory to resolve the crisis then the prevailing theory will either limp along or be destroyed as a bona fide paradigm shift will not be possible. The path of the crisis will progress and tranform into into one of two directions: either
i) a paradigm drift that can be thought of as “death by a thousand paper-cuts” which entails endless modifications of and/or bandaids on the incumbent theory or;
ii) a paradigm rift which in the words of Mark Zuckerberg results from “movng fast and breaking things.” The prevaliing theory will be abandonned with nothing as a replacement wreaking further anxiety and instability.
The timeframe for resolution of a drift will be considerable leaving the mounting anomalies unexplained and further gradual undermining of the prevailing model over time.
A rift on the other hand will tend to be more sudden and violent in the absense absent a any replacement theory or model. An expectation of an ongoing inability to control the crisis will ultimately lead to a completem loss of confidence with unintended consequences that will follow. The financial crisis of 2008 would be a quite realistic example of a paradigm drift.
Since the scientific revolution, scientists have attempted to describe and explain observable phenomena in the physical world works. The process of repeatable experimentation and observation is known as the scientific method. If an “experiment” is repeated, normal science accepted by the establishment should always predict the same result. But, a theory is nothing more than a model, or paradigm, that is the best prevailing explanation or description of how the natural world works.
When an unexpected, new or different result is observed that diverges from the expectation, rather than shouting “Eureka!” scientists might be better served by in words of Isaac Asimov, “gee, isn’t that funny?” When enough of these anomalies are observed, however, it is no longer a laughing matter and a real crisis emerges. If there happens to be is an alternative or competing model or paradigm that had not been accepted to date by the science establishment, but can better explain those annoying anomalies, the crisis blossoms into a full-blown revolution that results in the establishment embracing the new theory. This process of anomaly-crisis-revolution results in what Kuhn calls a paradigm shift.
In its simplest form, a paradigm shift is a wholesale change by the scientific community to a new model or description of reality, a paradigm, that better explains observable phenomena or better predicts behaviors. Initially applied to the hard sciences, over time the theory has been expanded to cover just about everything: sociology, politics, religion, psychology, art etc.
In Gladwellian terms, there will be a tipping point at which the crisis blossoms into a full-blown revolution. If there is an alternate theory that better explains or solves some of the unsolved puzzle-solution sets, the mainstream scientists who had embraced the old theory, the normal science, abandon ship and will begin to embrace or shift to the new theory which becomes the new normal.
What is often overlooked
