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Our understanding of science begins with the textbooks from our school days. In these books, the scientific world is presented as a pearl necklace composed of a series of scientific events; each event is like a pearl on the necklace. Scientists are a group of people who contribute to collecting the empirical facts, establishing theories and methods of a particular scientific field, like a pearl master. Proponents of this view of the history of science believe that the development of science is linear and cumulative, just like climbing slowly up a stable and reliable slope.
However, the author Thomas Kuhn believed that some authoritative books, including textbooks and popular science books, actually mislead us. In the real history of scientific development, it is often difficult to precisely define when a scientific event occurs, and who the first person is that has discovered a specific scientific event. Science does not develop through the accumulation of discoveries and inventions of famous individual scientists in the way that we imagine. This book argues that the route of scientific development appears as multiple independent development curves, showing non-linear and revolutionary features.
Thomas S. Kuhn presented us with the common features of scientific progress, accurately described the process of scientific development using the concept of "transformations of the paradigms," and profoundly interpreted the nature of scientific revolutions. In fact, scientific revolutions do not only concern the accumulation and progression of knowledge, but also a whole set of changes in world views and methodologies.
