List of paradigm shifts in science

Paradigm shift is the term first used by Thomas Kuhn in his 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions to describe a change in basic assumptions within the ruling theory of science

List of paradigm shifts in science

• Throughout history, there has been changes to the biological kingdoms as new ones have been discovered. Carolus Linnaeus initially classified living things as either animal or vegetable (plant), with a third category (mineral) for non-living things. The invention of the microscope and the discovery of microscopic organisms eventually led to the creation of the bacteria and protist kingdoms. In 1968, it was proposed that fungi should be in their own kingdom, as they are dinstinct from plants. The discovery of archaebacteria proposed adding a sixth kingdom. Each of these discoveries was a paradigm shift for biologists.

• 16th and 17th Centuries: The theory of impetus, used to explain the nature of falling objects, is replaced by the concept of inertia developed by Galileo Galilei and Isaac Newton.

• 17th Century: The transition from a Ptolemaic cosmology to a Copernican one.

• 18th Century: The unification of classical physics by Newton into a coherent mechanical worldview.

• 18th Century or 19th Century: The acceptance of Lavoisier's theory of chemical reactions and combustion in place of phlogiston theory, known as the Chemical Revolution. Lavoisier's theory also refuted the alchemy concept of transmutation.

• 1828: Friedrich Wöhler accidentally synthesizes urea from inorganic compounds, discrediting the theory of vitalism in chemistry. Vitalism held that the chemicals of living organisms were fundamentally different from inorganic matter and therefore could not be created from chemicals derived from nonliving matter. This discovery also started the field of organic chemistry.

• 1872: The shift in geometric outlook from particular structures to symmetry groups in Felix Klein's Erlangen program.

• Late 19th Century: The transition of biology from a creationist model to an evolutionary model.

• 1880s to Early 20th Century: The Germ theory of disease replaces all other models of infection.

• 1909: Ernest Rutherford demonstrates in his gold-foil experiment that even though objects may appear to be solid, all matter consists of mostly empty space.

• Early 20th Century: The transition between the worldview of Newtonian physics and the Einsteinian Relativistic worldview.

• Early 20th Century: The transition between the Luminiferous ether theory and the Einsteinian Theory of relativity.

• Early 20th Century: Cosmological work positing a beginning to the observable universe, called the Big Bang, in contrast to the unchanging universe that was infinite in time and space.)

• Early 20th Century: The discovery of radioactive decay demonstrates that mechanisms exist to transmute one chemical element into another.

• 1912-1961: Plate tectonics vindicates Wegener's theory of continental drift.

• 1900s-1920s: The initial development of quantum mechanics, which redefined classical mechanics.

• 1920s-1940s The development of quantum field theory completes the transition away from classical theories of forces (except gravity).

• Mid to late 20th Century: The movement, known as the Cognitive revolution, away from Behaviourist approaches to psychological study and the acceptance of cognition as central to studying human behaviour.

• Mid to Late 20th Century: With the discovery of mathematical chaos, the realization that the behavior of nonlinear systems cannot in general be predicted with perfect certainty.

• Late 20th Century: The change in psychiatry from Freudian psychoanalysis to a basis of neurochemistry.

See also

• Social effect of evolutionary theory
• Scientific revolution
• Natural philosophy
• Scientific skepticism
• Philosophical skepticism
• Rationalism
• Scientific mythology