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'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

Contents

List of paradigm shifts in science

See also

List of paradigm shifts in science

★ 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.

★ 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.

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

★ Early 20th Century: The transition between the Maxwellian Electromagnetic worldview and the Einsteinian Relativistic worldview.

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

★ 1930s: The development of Quantum mechanics, which redefined classical mechanics.

★ 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.

See also

★ Social effect of evolutionary theory

★ Scientific revolution

★ Natural philosophy

★ Scientific skepticism

★ Philosophical skepticism

★ Rationalism

★ Scientific mythology