CRWN01 Section 4

Stop and Think: Paradigm Shifts in Science

The term "paradigm shift" was coined in 1962 by physicist and scientific philosopher Thomas Kuhn in his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
It was originally used in the context of science to describe discoveries consisting of theories and experiments using trusted methods.
It is described that scientists consistently try to expand the validity of prevailing paradigm theories by finding explanations for data inaccuracies and anomalies.
Sometimes, inconsistencies cannot be explained which leads to old paradigms giving away to new paradigms and creating a shift.

The two most appropriate examples of paradigm shifts proposed by Kuhn are the Copernican Revolution and the displacement of Newtonian mechanics by general relativity.
The Copernican Revolution heralded Heliocentrism that proved that Earth and its fellow planets were orbiting the sun. This meant that Earth could not be the center of the universe as was thought by Geocentrism. This was introduced by Nicolaus Copernicus and supported by Johannes Kepler who introduced elliptical orbits and Galileo Galilei who confirmed these observations telescopically.
Newtonian mechanics states that gravity is instantaneous, but the presence of general relativity proved that nothing can be faster than light. This was described by a thought experiment in which the instantaneous disappearance of the Sun would not immediately cause the planets orbiting it to drift off. Instead, the lack of gravity would eliminate the depression formed in the fabric of spacetime and create a ripple that expands towards the planets.

According to Kuhn, paradigm shifts are not only indicated by a change in what is considered correct or more so, but also a change in mindset. The fundamental changes of new discoveries alter the way people think. Examples in science include the types of research that are conducted, what problems are considered important and the kind of questions that are needed to resolve them, and what are the new standards of evidence.
The most appropriate example of this is the work of German chemist Fritz Haber who developed a method of synthesizing ammonia from nitrogen gas in 1910. His intentions were to resolve the agricultural crisis in Europe caused by the decline of nitrogenous deposits from mining. The unfortunate outcomes of his research were used on the battlefields of World War 1 and applied to more lethal standards in the form of sulfur and chlorine gas.
The transformation of Haber's research was a result of the paradigm shift in warfare. While he never intended for his research to be used to maim and kill, the mindset of the general public was to seeking out increasingly lethal weapons for an industrial war. This was an abominable mutilation of science as a tool to establish humanity's civility which has morphed into a means to an end.

Within history, science can be described as a paradigm shift in itself. It can be distinguished as pre- and post-Enlightenment history where prior to the enlightenment, religion was the dominating factor that influenced people's choices and was considered the explanation for every phenomena.
After the Enlightenment, people desired more logical explanations for everything. Many think that this was indicated by the transition of Geocentrism to Heliocentrism.

The Theory of Everything was coined by Albert Einstein to describe the unification of all forces of nature into one cohesive framework. This was further developed by Steven Hawking who sought to find a mathematical representation for this as was initially conceived by Bernhard Riemann prior to Einstein.
Prior to the Enlightenment, people's perspective of the Theory of Everything were creation stories and myths.
The entry into the Enlightenment was what people called The Scientific Revolution.
The Cold War was an example of a paradigm shift that greatly resembled that of World War 1 through the massive production of weapons from rearmament programs. The key difference was the broadening of the idea of national superiority. Countries wanted to display their strength, but also their intelligence. This gave rise to the Space Race as well as the race to bring about cold fusion, which was a fluke.

The commonality that is shared in each paradigm shift is the establishment of what was previously considered unknown, or even, impossible.
People around the world did not think that it was possible to land a person on the moon until it happened. As soon as it did, everyone began to think about the next new frontiers of science such as space travel and the existence of extraterrestrial intelligences. This also made further developments in literature as shown by the New Wave of Science Fiction that took place in the 1960s and 1970s.
The growing interest in space gave rise to an organization called SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) founded by astrophysicists Carl Sagan and Frank Drake in 1984.

Prior to SETI, Dr. Drake formulated the Drake equation in 1961 that estimated the number of technological civilizations in our galaxy, both inter- and extrasolar.
In a variety of circumstances, the equation yielded tens of thousands of civilizations. This raises the question of why have we not made contact given these numbers. This dilemma is called the Fermi Paradox and is where the limits of science come in.

This was coined from a discussion that Enrico Fermi reportedly had in 1950 on the existence of extraterrestrial intelligent beings, to which he responded that he did not see any around.
The first broadcast that we sent into space was during the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin. By this time, that broadcast would have been transmitted via electromagnetic waves at a radius of 70 light years (our solar system has a radius of 27 light years).
By analyzing the chemistry of deposits containing organic molecules released by the big bang, it is extremely possible that there are life forms that are older than those of our terrestrial nature. By that reasoning, our methods of broadcasting messages would be vastly outdated and extraterrestrial life could be relying on more advanced forms of communication.

In addition to difficulties in communication, there is also the matter that interstellar travel can only happen faster than the speed of light. If it were to be restricted within these confines, then interstellar travel would be faced with the issue of the time require to get from point A to point B combined with disorientation from vastness of space between the planets in our galaxy.
Scientists are also looking to better understand the biological processes of life forms by imagining life that has adapted to other standards of habitability than our own. This new area of research is called Astrobiology and was initially frowned upon by the scientific community due to their similarities with the works of rogue conspiracy theorists.

Since then, Astrobiology has been gathering contemporary interest due to the developments of extrasolar telescopes such as Kepler launched into space in 2009 by NASA and the TPF launch in 2011. These new telescopes could be used in conjunction with spectroscopy to analyze the conditions of extrasolar planets.
Developments such as these question the Anthropic Principle which states, as said by Sheldon Cooper from the Big Bang Theory, "If we wish to explain why our universe exists the way it does, then it must have qualities that allow intelligent creatures to arise who are capable of asking the question". But according to the standards of paradigm shifts stated by Kuhn, the standards of questions that are considered important would have change many times over for other extraterrestrial intelligences due to their own paradigm shifts.

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