The Book That Became Nell’s Life ~ The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

There is not a single chapter in this book, written by Thomas Kuhn, that hasn’t been of the utmost importance to my first goal. This book has practically become my first goal, besides a few articles, two of which being interpretations of this book. It really holds all the basic tools to analyzing historical events, in the field of science anyway. Through my reflections of each chapter, I have been able to summarize and make sense of this intensive and knowledge rich text and taken away from it the ability to recognize the causes of and events leading to a paradigm shift, or revolution, as well as learned the importance or cultural influence and the relevance of the period in time of the discovery. I mean quite literally that I spent months analyzing  this book.

This is the Khun cycle below, and it basically summarizes how history changes over time.

I think it’s pretty fascinating that Kuhn found a way to summarize history in a six step loop. I know that everyone who is reading this wants me to explain it, but hold your horses! I need an audience at my ELI presentation, and if I reveal too much here, you might just assume you know enough to analyze science history  without hearing my talk, and I would be sad.

This isn’t the only tool I have acquired. Analyzing this book has also allowed me to come up with some rules to keep me in check.

My Rules

1. Study in cultural context
2. Study in context of time period
3. Look for the cycle

These rules might not make total sense out of context, but they can be very useful to someone looking through historical documentation. Briefly, the first rule suggests that it is possible that culture may have influenced a scientist to study something, try something, or even think of something that led to a discovery or experiment. The second would ask the historian to consider the values of a time, the politics of a time, and any other major events. Finally, a third rule is to always look for the cycle, as illustrated above   Another rule, that I don’t have listed because it didn’t actually come from Kuhn, is to look for signs of “bad” science and “good” science.

So, this is a brief description of what I got in return for selling hours of my life to Thomas Kuhn’s book. A hard read perhaps, but chock full of the fundamentals of science history. I must conclude that the deal was a bargain.  

~Nell