A paradigm in crisis

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Thomas Kuhn in his book “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions“, defines a new paradigm as one which replaces a previous worldview with a new one and changes our fundamental understanding of reality while describing the difficultly that those with revolutionary thoughts have in getting their ideas considered.

For example the Church at the time of Galileo forced him to recant his world view of a heliocentric solar system because it contradicted church doctrine.

Although many will not admit it; today’s scientific establishment is not too different.  Today one must have an idea published in a peer review journal before it can be “seen” by the scientific community.

Unfortunately, the existing scientific community determines which ideas are seen by them because they determine which ones are published.

In some cases they justifiably refuse to publish ideas because they are not back up by scientific facts however, in some cases they may prevent them from being published because they contradict what they believe in.

Science dictates that a theoretical model of our environment must explain and predict all observations.  If it cannot it must be modified or discarded.

For example in the Ptolemaic or geocentric system of astronomy the existence of epicycles were used to explain the retrograde motion of the Moon, Sun, and planets.

It was not until scientific investigations were stimulated by Copernicus and advancements in observational technology, which allowed for direct observations of planetary motion did scientists realize epicycles did not exist.

This is true even though many Greek, Indian, and Muslim savants had published heliocentric hypotheses centuries before Copernicus.

However, why did it take almost two thousand years for science to realize that their ideas were correct?

The reason may have been that the scientific community assumed the existence of epicycles based only on their predicative powers.  Therefore, they were able to justify suppressing the correct Greek and Muslim ideas for almost 2000 years because, using them, they were still able to make accurate predictions a planet’s position.  This was true even though there was a more logical and accurate predicative methodology based as mentioned earlier on observations of the Greek, Indian, and Muslim cultures.

If one looks very closely one can see similarities between then and now.

For example Quantum Theory assumes that all mass is quantized in a particle format based primarily on its ability to make accurate quantitative predictions of our environment.

However, observations of Dark Matter appear to contradict this assumption because even with our advance observational technology, science has been unable to observe its baryonic or particle component.

History has shown the fact that a theoretical model can make accurate quantitative predictions does not justify not considering a new paradigm such as the one presented in this blog and our book “The Reality of the Fourth Spatial Dimension” when there are observations that contract its theoretical foundations.

“The crises of our time, it becomes increasingly clear, are the necessary
impetus for the revolution now under way. And once we understand
nature’s transformative powers, we see that it is our powerful ally, not a
force to feared or subdued.”
Thomas Kuhn

Later Jeff  

Copyright Jeffrey O’Callaghan 2010

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