These remarks permit us at last to consider the problems that provide this essay with its title. What are scientific revolutions, and what is their function in scientific development? Much of the answer to these questions has been anticipated in earlier sections. In particular, the preceding discussion has indicated that scientific revolutions are here taken to be those non-cumulative developme...

The self-limiting revolutions of 1989 in Central Europe offer an alternative paradigm of revolutionary change that is reminiscent more of the American struggle for independence in 1776 than the Jacobin tendencies that grew out of the French Revolution of 1789. In order to understand the contradictory impulses of the revolutions of 1989—the desire for a radical renewal and the concern for preser...

G enerally, technological progress proceeds at a slow and measured pace, with only incremental improvements seen in existing products and technologies in the economy. At times, however, the pace accelerates, and the economy experiences a technological revolution during which radically new products and technologies are introduced. Recent discussions suggest that the world economy is currently ex...

Aquaculture is nothing new. It arose multiple times in indigenous societies where coastal population densities of “seafood eating peoples” increased beyond the carrying capacities of natural, aquatic ecosystems to provide for them. There have been many “blue revolutions” throughout history! Aquaculture has a long, fascinating pre-history with well documented “blue revolutions” occurring through...

Kuhn’s account of the development of science, together with its associated concepts of paradigm, normal science an scientific revolutions, has been the focus of intensive debate ever since its first publication in 1962.2 As a subsidiary issue in this debate the question has been raised as to the applicability of Kuhn’s theory or of Kuhn’s concepts to the history of individual scientific discipl...

‘Verlernen ist oft schwerer als lernen.’ (Arthur normal science is based upon a set of concepts or Koestler) paradigms. Normal science has cumulative character, (To forget is often more difficult than to learn.) i.e. involves collecting facts and unravelling problems which confirm the consistency and correctness of existing paradigms. By necessity, groundbreaking Scientific revolutions by chang...