Originally published in Tuesday’s, June 26, 2007, New York Times’ Science section, here’s a viewable copy published in the English language Bangkok Post:
Darwin still rules, but some biologists dream of a paradigm shift
by Douglas H. Erwin
Bangkok Post (Thailand), page 36.
02 Jul 2007
Is Darwin due for an upgrade? There are growing calls among some evolutionary biologists for just such a revision, although they differ about what form this might take. But those calls could also be exaggerated. There is nothing scientists enjoy more than the prospect of a good paradigm shift.
Paradigm shifts are the stuff of scientific revolutions. They change how we view the world, the sorts of questions that scientists consider worth asking, and even how we do science. The discovery of DNA marked one such shift, the theory of plate tectonics another.
Many scientists suffer from a kind of split personality. We believe that this is the most exciting time to be working while yearning for the excitement of a revolution. The philosopher of science Thomas S. Kuhn gets some of the blame for this state of affairs since he distinguished normal science from paradigm shifts in his 1962 landmark The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. What ambitious scientist would not want to be part of a paradigm shift? Who wants to admit to doing ‘‘normal’’ science? Not surprisingly, this yearning occasionally manifests itself in proclamations that a revolution is at hand.
