Riya Dhami's Key Ideas from Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions at Fifty
by Robert J. Richards, Lorraine Daston

Observations that don’t fit the current paradigm are called anomalies; they build up over time.

The seeds of revolution lie not in big breakthroughs but in small, repeated mismatches between theory and reality that the current paradigm cannot explain.

What scientists "see" is shaped by the theoretical framework they believe in.

Observation is not neutral; it's filtered through assumptions — meaning two scientists can see the same data but interpret it differently.

Competing paradigms are incommensurable; they use different standards and language, making them hard to compare directly.

Shifting paradigms is not just about evidence it’s about changing the lens through which reality is understood, often leading to miscommunication across schools of thought.

Scientific knowledge doesn’t just add up over time revolutions often discard previous theories entirely.

Progress in science can be destructive as well as constructive — tearing down old ideas is essential to building more accurate models of nature.

Embracing a new paradigm is often an emotional and social shift, not just a rational one.

Scientific revolutions resemble cultural revolutions people must believe in the new paradigm before they can use it.

A paradigm is not just a theory; it's a comprehensive worldview that dictates what is studied, how it's studied, and how results are interpreted.

Changing paradigms transforms the entire intellectual environment it rewrites the rules of what counts as "truth."