Reply #5: What part of this do you think Kuhn got wrong? [View All]

[Jim__]

Before Kuhn wrote The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (SOSR), he wrote a book, The Copernican Revolution. He was a recognized expert on the subject. Do you think the Kuhn claimed Copernicus' heliocentric system was original? Even in SOSR he talks about Aristarchus who had a heliocentric system more than 1500 years before Copernicus. Kuhn's point is not that a scientific revolution occurs when there is new information. Kuhn's point is that the growing crisis under the current paradigm leads to the creation, and more importantly, the eventual acceptance of the new paradigm. Copernicus' system was more complex and less accurate than Ptolemy's. It was the current crisis of the Ptolemaic system that gave Copernicus' system a chance.