Buzzword: Paradigm Shift

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paradigm shift
For those who are not familiar with scientific paradigm, according to Merriam-Webster's dictionary, a paradigm is "a philosophical and theoretical framework of a scientific school or discipline within which theories, laws, and generalizations and the experiments performed in support of them are formulated". In other words, it's a set of experiments that is to be copied to define a particular science.

So I created this conjecture in the slideshow based on two different models of progress. The first part of the conjecture is actually based on the influential Kuhn's paradigm shift model ("The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 1962). The latter is based on Dr. Kenneth R. Diller, Sc.D, P.E.'s lecture on "The Harmony of Science and the Bible" at the University of Texas in Austin.


Such phenomenon can be exemplified in the field of astronomy. In the beginning, various myths emerged in the ancient cultures. The Chinese believed that the earth was flat; so did the pre-Socratic Greeks. The early Egyptians thought the earth was a flat disk floating in the ocean. These thoughts could be contained by a paradigm, a notion, that the earth was flat. However, some ancient philosophers began to develop ideas of the spherical earth. Actually the Bible also mentions "the circle of the earth" in the Book of Isaiah (Isa. 40:22, see also Isa. 44:24-28; Gen. 1:10,16-18; Psa. 136:7-9; Prov. 8:27; Luke 4:5.) Then came Christopher Columbus who sailed 'round the earth, giving a paradigm shift, a new perspective of discovery, of the roundness of the earth. 

It doesn't stop there. When the Hubble telescope was launched to observe and take spectacular pictures of the universe out there, another paradigm shift occurred, giving scientists a new set of questions to ask, a new set of parameters of interpretation, and so forth.
The scientific pursuit is continually evolving and revolutionizing but though many are still in denial, it seems that scientific progress, which is affecting social progress, has a destination. The findings in various fields of study seem to converge into one body of the ultimate truth. This ultimate truth, I believe, parallels to, if not is, the meaning of our existence.  

Comments

  1. AnonymousMarch 30, 2011 at 2:50 PM

    What is the meaning of life? Yes, that is huge question...with one simple answer.

    ReplyDelete
  2. KatherineMarch 30, 2011 at 5:56 PM

    Care to share the answer?

    ReplyDelete

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