one is said to "know" about social processes precisely because the truth of social or mental processes are more difficult to pin down than the truth of physical processes. In this regard, Kuhn refers to "the sociology of the scientific community" (vii) and his encounter with a behavioral science:
[S]pending the year in a community composed predominantly of social scientists confronted me with unanticipated problems about the differences between such communities and those of the natural scientists among whom I had been trained. Particularly, I was struck by the number and extent of the overt disagreements between social scientists about the nature of legitimate scientific problems and methods (Kuhn, 1962, p. viii).
This background of overt disagreements among scholars presumably dedicated to the definitiveness of the scientific method, Kuhn indicates, led indirectly to his developing his ideas about the role of paradigms, or "universally recognized scientific achievements that for a time provide model problems and solutions to a community of practitioners" (Kuhn, 1962, p. viii). This idea can be translated to other theories (e.g., sex or race differences regarding intelligence). The overriding point is that when an unexpected scientific anomaly violates a theory or model, there is a potential for testing or altogether changing the theory or model (paradigm). And when that happens, whole new ideas and explanations, based on science, may arise.
Nowhere does Kuhn's explanation of how universally recognized models of scientific understanding appear to make more sense than in respect of the theory of evolution, proceeding from Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species. The theory of evolution, before Darwin, was a theological paradigm based on the biblical story of creation in Genesis. Darwin observed anomalies of species emergence that he could not explain by the theological method. Citing a variety of historical changes in univers...