— Thomas KuhnThe Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), chapter XIII; exact chapter title
Commentary
The chapter title captures the tension between Kuhn's account of scientific revolutions and the idea that scientific knowledge develops through uninterrupted accumulation. Normal research can extend and refine knowledge within an established paradigm, but revolutionary change may alter the concepts, classifications and problems through which earlier findings were understood. Consequently, scientific development cannot always be represented as a simple addition of new facts to an unchanged body of knowledge. Kuhn nevertheless treats scientific progress as real and examines how later paradigms can solve problems that earlier ones could not. His account thus complicates the meaning of progress rather than simply denying it. A careful interpretation should distinguish the rejection of a straightforward cumulative model from the much stronger, and inaccurate, claim that scientific developments never constitute improvements.
Commentary
The chapter title captures the tension between Kuhn's account of scientific revolutions and the idea that scientific knowledge develops through uninterrupted accumulation. Normal research can extend and refine knowledge within an established paradigm, but revolutionary change may alter the concepts, classifications and problems through which earlier findings were understood. Consequently, scientific development cannot always be represented as a simple addition of new facts to an unchanged body of knowledge. Kuhn nevertheless treats scientific progress as real and examines how later paradigms can solve problems that earlier ones could not. His account thus complicates the meaning of progress rather than simply denying it. A careful interpretation should distinguish the rejection of a straightforward cumulative model from the much stronger, and inaccurate, claim that scientific developments never constitute improvements.