“No Escape from Reality:” Thomas Kuhn and the Reliability of Medical Knowledge

Send us Fan Mail“Should we worry about the reliability of medical knowledge?” asks philosopher John Huss (University of Akron). We consider this question from the perspective of Thomas Kuhn’s classic, 1962 book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Kuhn explains how science does not evolve incrementally, one step following another, but rather undergoes wholesale revolutions disconnected from all that came before. He called these revolutions, “paradigm shifts” (to his everlasting regret). While Kuhn draws mostly from astronomy to make his case, we draw from recent and past medical examples to show how his concept applies to medicine as well. We talk about how various groups dependent on reliable medical knowledge (e.g., patients, health care professionals, educators) can be affected by the possibility of major shifts in established approaches to health care at any time. There’s no escape from reality, as the song goes. Primary Source CitationKuhn T. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 3rd ed, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press; 1996.LinksRussell Teagarden’s related blog posts on According to the Arts:Kuhn’s book, The Structure of Scientific RevolutionMichel Foucault’s book, The Birth of the ClinicDr. Barry Marshall’s story of how he and Dr. Robin Warren engineered the change in peptic ulcer disease from acid based to infection based.The Clinic & The Person Episode 12 (September, 2023), featuring the paradigm shift from lobotomies and other forms of psychosurgery to psychopharmacology. Sir Brian May’s bio (guitarist for Queen and PhD astrophysicist).Please send us comments, recommendations, and questions to this text link, or email to: [email protected]. Thanks for listening, and please subscribe to The Clinic & The Person wherever you get your podcasts. Executive producer: Anne Bentley