The Structure of Scientific Revolutions: Chapter 13 Summary & Analysis

Finally, Kuhn turns to the question of progress. Why is science believed to progress in a way no other field does? Art, for example, is not viewed in a linear way. Kuhn also flips the question, suggesting that science is defined by progress: “to a very great extent the term ‘science’ is reserved for fields that do progress in obvious ways.” Kuhn then questions why science is so separated from other kinds of work.

First, Kuhn reflects on the figure of Leonardo DaVinci, who could go back and forth between science and art. Even after DaVinci’s time, the term “art” applied just as much to technology as it did to painting. But now science is siloed off, defined by progress and objectivity that is not necessary in other fields. 

Kuhn next reflects on the fact that artists and people in the humanities do make a kind of progress. But rather than trying to view such progress as linear, non-scientists merely try to add new ideas and creations; often, these ideas are in conflict with one another, but no one in these fields views that as disqualifying or negative. This disagreement is not possible in normal science because it is guided by a single coherent paradigm.

Interestingly, Kuhn also notes that scientists—more than any other professionals—only address their work to one another, while most artists or theologians want their work to reach a broad population. And indeed, because scientists are speaking to a smaller audience, they have fewer contrasting viewpoints to contend with. Plus, because scientists are not necessarily trying to appeal to the public, they can choose areas of focus not because they are societally urgent but because they are probably solvable. Since scientists pick problems specifically to solve them, it follows that science often progresses faster than other fields (like theology or medical care).

Kuhn also draws his readers’ attention to the way scientific education differs from other types of education. In most fields, students read a variety of primary works, many of which express different viewpoints, beliefs, or styles from one another. In science, however, textbooks are “systematically substituted for the creative scientific literature that made them possible”—and as Kuhn has already discussed, textbooks present a particularly linear, simplified view of the history of science.

Rather than condemning this education, however, Kuhn notes that it prepares students for normal science. And because normal science is what allows for moments of crisis (and subsequent scientific revolutions), this textbook-based education also helps to make paradigm shifts possible. However, it does not necessarily equip students to think outside the box in the way that is necessary once a new paradigm has replaced an old one. 

Finally, Kuhn argues that science and progress are associated precisely because there are so many scientific revolutions. When one group emerges victorious from a moment of crisis, they are determined to announce that victory—and thus to rewrite the history of science in their favor.

But Kuhn does not believe that in science, “might makes right.” Instead, he tries to articulate the specific characteristics of scientific communities, which function based on mutual agreement and shared beliefs. In particular, Kuhn believes that most scientific progress was made in Europe from 1600 on; he therefore focuses mostly on a modern Western view of the scientific community.

Kuhn lays out the criteria of such communities: first, the scientists must be concerned with problems of nature. Second, they must work in some detail and with some degree of focus. Third, scientists must accept solutions not as individuals but as a group. Fourth, scientists must have some sort of credentials and education (be members of “a uniquely competent professional group”). All these characteristics set groups of scientists apart from other groups of professionals.

Since scientific groups have a shared knowledge of which problems have yet to be solved, paradigms are selected not because they are new but because they offer “concrete problem-solving ability.” Similarly, new paradigms often narrow science rather than broadening it; they allow for depth, not breadth.

Kuhn has consistently argued that “scientific progress is not what we had taken it to be.” But now, he goes further, arguing that society has to “relinquish the notion, explicit or implicit, that changes of paradigm carry scientists and those who learn from them closer and closer to truth.”

Kuhn then points out that he has not used the word “truth” at all in his book (except in a quote from Francis Bacon). Science is so often the field in which objective truth seems most possible, but Kuhn argues that no such thing exists. Instead, he advocates for valuing science not because it explains a universal truth but because it answers a certain set of particularly relevant or interesting questions.  

To articulate the difficulty of his proposal, Kuhn turns to Darwin. When Darwin proposed evolution, what upset his contemporaries was not the process of gradual change that he described. Instead, fellow scientists were horrified that there was no end goal; in Darwin’s mind, living beings were not heading toward some form of perfection. Instead, they were merely changing to adapt to whatever environments and circumstances they found themselves in.

Kuhn has argued for something similar in science: rather than progressing toward a single goal, new ideas and paradigms have adapted and succeeded through a kind of natural selection. There is a larger question here that Kuhn does not claim to know the answer to: “what must the world be like in order that man may know it?” Instead, he only claims to have presented a new lens through which to observe science—a lens that, in many respects, mimics nature itself.