Ep. 6: Thomas Kuhn – Losing my Saganity

In his 1962 book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn argued that the history of science is not the history of a steady march towards the truth that we usually imagine. Rather, science moves in fits and starts, which Kuhn famously described as “paradigm shifts.” Often the new paradigm is “incommensurable” with the old one; the two worldviews are so different that it’s hard to even compare them. In this episode we review Kuhn’s work and the enormous impact it had on the philosophy of science in the 20th century. We also talk about how glassblowing led to the Enlightenment and what to do when famous philosophers decide to hurl heavy objects at you. Mark also gives us the inside tip on how to tell one Ptolemy from the other, and where to find science experiments in the Bible.