Traditionally, scientific development is viewed as the cumulative triumph of an ever more truthful understanding of the reality. However, Kuhn (1970) argued in Structure of Scientific Revolutions that theory adaptation is in fact rare, and new theories replace old ones rather than building on them. A core concept in this argument is the life cycle of a paradigm: a sequence of four stages: emergence, normal science, crisis, and revolution, which is usually followed by the emergence of a new paradigm.

 

• In the emergent stage, there is an absence of commonly accepted beliefs or standards governing scientific activity.
• As a theory attracts nearly every scientist in the field, it becomes the dominant paradigm. And normal science begins.
• During normal science, clashes between theory and observations are often resolved in favor of theory. It is often presumed that any anomalous observations are wrong, or because of the calculations erroneous.
• As anomalies continue accumulating, more scientists will devote to solving them and some may propose radical solutions. A revolution occurs when a new paradigm gains wide acceptance.

 

Sterman and Wittenberg (1999) attempted to describe this scientific revolution with a dynamic model of paradigm emergence and competition, and thus determine the relative importance of factors in determining the fate of new theories. The central hypothesis of the model is that paradigms are extended metaphors, and they have limitation in the applicability to reality. When pushed too far, anomalies will be generated. The focal point in the conceptualization is a construct called “confidence”, which captures the basic beliefs of practitioners regarding the epistemological status of the paradigm — is it a provisional model or revealed truth? Confidence rises when puzzle-solving increases and when anomalies decrease.

 

 

The rates of formulating and solving puzzles depend on the number of puzzles under study, the fraction of practitioners involved in puzzle solving, the fraction of the time devoted to solve puzzles, and the average difficulty of the puzzles, which depends on how far the root metaphor has been extended. The average time required to recognize an unsolved puzzle as an anomaly depends on practitioners’ level of confidence in the paradigm. The rate at which anomalies are resolved depends on the number of practitioners in sanctioned research, the fraction of those involved in anomaly resolution, and the average difficulty of anomalies. The total population of scientists is constant: scientists who leave one paradigm enter another; and entry of young scientists is balanced by retirement of the old. Practitioners defect based on their confidence relative to the confidence of those in the dominant paradigm.

 

   

 

 

To test the conceptualization and quantify the roles of different factors, fifty-seven 2000-year models were plugged into the model and run. Overall, 83% of the cases were predicted accurately, which granted a relative confidence to the model. In addition, the regression results showed that a new paradigm’s chances of success increase with greater intrinsic capability, a weaker dominant paradigm, and a smaller number of competitors. Here, intrinsic capability is determined by a host of factors including the richness of the theoretical constructs emerging from the paradigm’s root metaphor and the particular genius of the paradigm’s creators. Yet the estimated coefficients illustrate that the likelihood of a new paradigm rising to dominance and how long it may thrive are overwhelmingly determined by historical contingencies and only weakly influenced by its intrinsic explanatory power. The evolution of the theories as a whole is strongly path-dependent.

 

Lastly, based on what we have learned from the Sterman and Wittenberg paper, I was thinking about several questions related to our field, and would like to hear your thoughts on it —- Does this model apply to social science theories, especially learning theories? Do you think these theories evolve or revolve? For example, when thinking of the shifts from behaviorism to cognitivism, and then to constructivism, do you consider them as evolutionary? Or even, would you see them as different pedagogical approaches rather than paradigms/theories —- which would leave to another important question.

 

References

Kuhn, T. S. (1970). The structure of scientific revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Sterman, J. D., & Wittenberg, J. (1999). Path dependence, competition, and succession in the dynamics of scientific revolution. Organization Science, 10(3), 322-341.