In 2020 we have witnessed renewables under-cutting fossil-fuelled generation and accounting for a growing proportion of electricity supply. It is normal during a paradigm shift for the ‘old guard’ to fight hard to defend their world view, even as the evidence mounts against them. The defenders of the old paradigm, like the former US Administration, the coal companies in the US, and gas supply companies everywhere, will continue to attack the new paradigm for a while yet with their considerable financial resources – but it is now more than clear that they are on the wrong side of history. A paradigm shift is the term first used by Thomas Kuhn in his famous 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions to describe the process and result of. In the old paradigm, renewables were regarded as expensive and only ever likely to represent a small percentage of supply. People who argued otherwise were regarded by the energy establishment as unrealistic or even dangerous dreamers. The energy industry has certainly entered a paradigm shift in the last 5 to 10 years.
This simple idea transformed scientific debate and modelling.Īlthough Kuhn wrote broadly about science his idea is readily applicable to other fields including the energy sector. History of the Concept of Scientific Revolution 2.1 Scientific Revolution as a Topic for Historiography of Science 2.2 Scientific Revolution as a Topic for Philosophy 2.3 Criteria for Identifying Scientific Revolutions 3. Then cracks appear when some evidence arrives that things are not quite how they appear to be. In that phase the majority of people who are attached to the existing paradigm resist, rubbishing those attacking the existing theory. Over time, however, the weight of evidence builds until the new paradigm emerges and is then quickly accepted by the majority. The Problems of Revolution and Innovative Change 2. In the period that Kuhn called ‘normal science’, everything looks fine. In short, the concept says that things change in paradigm shifts rather than gradually.
Few indeed are the philosophers or historians influential enough to make it into the funny papers, but Kuhn is one. In 1962 Thomas Kuhn wrote about the power of paradigms in science in his book, ‘The structure of scientific revolutions’. Paradigm shift Blame the late Thomas Kuhn.
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