Three Types of Scientific Revolution: A Kuhnian Analysis of Evolutionary Biology
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2011
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Haverford College. Department of Philosophy
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Thesis
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eng
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Open Access
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Abstract
Kuhn’s theory of scientific revolution has received much criticism for being overly simplistic and unable to account for more subtle-–and often more frequent-–types of scientific change. Indeed, it is argued that modern biology has simply never experienced a ‘revolution’ in the traditional Kuhnian sense of the word. However, an overlooked aspect of Kuhn’s philosophy of science may provide the conceptual grounds to posit more nuanced types of scientific revolution that can describe more complex scientific changes. It will be argued that Kuhn’s concept of specialization provides the conceptual grounds to posit two other types of scientific revolution in his philosophy of science: divergent revolution and trans‐disciplinary revolution. The case for two new types of revolution will be situated in the field of evolutionary biology, as two events in its own historical evolution will be used to concretize divergent and trans‐disciplinary revolution.