Chris Otter was an amazing presenter as his focus was not on a slide deck, but rather what he had to say. While I have read some of Kuhn’s book, I understand very little of what was intended. Otter did an excellent job of filling that gap, although I wish I came to the presentation more prepared. He discussed not only Kuhn’s book and ideas, but the history of the history of science that led to Kuhn’s book. This was by far the most interesting part of the presentation as I had not heard things like this before and the organizers of the class had done an excellent job of mentioning and discussing EVERY person or idea that Otter brought up in relation to paradigm shifts.
One thing that really stuck with me is the idea that the age of paradigm shifts could be over. I don’t know how much I agree with this that I think we live in a society, at least the scientific community, bases theory off of recorded data. With the current ideas and theories we have, there are few anomalies that I can think of other than in physics where Newtons and Einsteins Law’s break down in extreme circumstances. With this being said, people are getting paid to try and find a solution. These people are actively participating in research where they explore outside of the current paradigm trying to find a new one. I don’t think that the age of paradigms will be over, but they will be few and far between as we begin to understand more and more of the universe.