Autor: SEAN WINKLER

Abstract:

Ever since Charles Darwin’s publishing of the Origin of Species in 1859, the world has, literally, never been the same. The notion that species had not endured since their Creation by God but instead had evolved by means of “natural selection,” was a momentous event in history, making Darwin the leader of a, so-called, “scientific revolution.” There have been few spheres of thought, whether they be sociological, theological, philosophical, etc., whose fundamental principles have not been thrown into disarray by this tremendous scientific achievement. But in 1962, yet another blow came to science’s foundations with the publication of Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Earth shattering as it was, Kuhn demonstrated the dynamic of his theory at play using every major revolution in the history of science; all, that is, except for Charles Darwin’s. Despite borrowing Darwin’s theoretical dynamic, not once in the “Structure” is the historical development nor revolutionary nature of natural selection ever discussed. This absence did not become problematized until 1981 at the hands of one, John C. Greene in his work Science, Ideology, and World Views: Essays in the History of Evolutionary Ideas. Greene’s realization brought forth a shocking possibility, namely, that the absence of Darwin’s revolution from the “Structure” was due to its overall inability to fit into the Kuhnian model by virtue of its criteria for “paradigms” and “revolutions.” It is my purpose in this essay, then, to prove that the Darwinian revolution, despite its suspicious absence in the “Structure” can be argued to fit into the Kuhnian model and, furthermore, that by virtue of its accordance to this model, stands as a revolution that, despite its social and theological implications, is fundamentally scientific in nature. Kuhn’s failure to treat Darwin’s theory in his work is need simply for an apology, not an overthrow of his or Darwin’s theories.

Texto Completo: https://www.publicacoesfacfil.pt/category.php?id_category=32

Palavras-Chave: apology,Darwin,Greene,Kuhn,paradigm,scientifi