Scientific Paradigms

1. According to Thomas Kuhn, What are scientific paradigms and how do they function? Choose one of Jonathan Wells’ icons of evolution (any one of your choice) and show how this particular icon could be understood as demonstrating the paradigmatic status of modern Darwinian evolutionary theory.
According to Thomas Kuhn, normal science is this idea of puzzle solving where scientists take past achievements and base their research on that achievement. The achievements are acknowledged for a certain period of time making them paradigms. Instead of calling what scientists were studying or achieving, knowledge, Kuhn talks about how there are paradigm shifts. It is about building on ideas, but revolutions are not common with paradigms. In order
for data to be considered evidence a paradigm has to be in place. Therefore, Kuhn brings up this idea on whether data actually equals evidence causing a big uproar in the scientific community. Many scientists began to wonder if their work actually meant anything if with Kuhn’s idea of paradigms we would probably never reach truth, at least not for a while. According to Kuhn paradigms create a lense for their to be evidence.
As an example of how paradigms function, in class we looked at the Ptolemaic and Copernicus theories.
When we created research questions for each theory, we found that the observations were pretty consistent. Data can only be evidence because it is being interpreted under the light of the paradigm. In the end the paradigm decides what questions are relevant. Another example of a paradigm is looking at it like it’s the cover of a jigsaw puzzle, where scientists already know the answer but they don’t know how all the pieces come together. They can verify their data with the paradigm, thus making the data evidence towards a specific paradigm. However these paradigms can change when they create anomalies. These anomalies cannot be ignored, which irritates many scientists because they want to stay with the old paradigm but it’s already changing. This also means that these paradigms are never challenged against another one; they are never competing. Kuhn’s idea of paradigms has led to many taking a closer look at the “evidence” behind
evolution.
Jonathan Wells wrote a book called, “Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth,” where he discusses many icons of Evolution and how the examples in textbooks that Darwinists choose are very false and misleading to those reading those textbooks. Many of these icons could be understood as demonstrating the paradigmatic status of modern Darwinian evolutionary theory. The chapter that I am going to discuss was about homology in vertebrate limbs. This chapter can be understood as demonstrating the paradigmatic status of modern evolutionary theory because it is used to show evidence for common ancestry, which leads to circular reasoning.
In the Origin of Species, Darwin argued that in order to explain homology, you need to look at descent from modification (Wells 61).
There was a strong link between common descent and homology in Darwin’s theory of Evolution. Those who call themselves Darwinists, changed the meaning of homology so that it means something has inherent features from a common ancestor (Wells 61). However, this now left the evidence of homology using common descent incomplete because now they were using homology which actually means common descent to show evidence for homology, which is circular reasoning. This is similar to the idea that modern evolutionary theory is now paradigmatic because it’s taking a set of information and manipulating it so that it fits the criteria of what you are trying to prove. This is similar to the idea of how paradigms control what questions are asked and how evidence is interpreted under the light of the paradigm. Darwinists changed the definition of homology in order to make it more concrete as evidence of common descent to prove Evolution, but it only made their argument invalid because common descent means
homology.
The next point is that for a very long time biologists have known that homologous features are not due to similar genes, so the way they are produced is still not known (Wells 62). Therefore, it cannot possibly be Evolution, because there isn’t actually any concrete evidence that points towards that being the conclusion. Instead many darwinists look towards the fossil record in order to look at evolutionary relationships. However according to Wells, “comparing fossils is no more straightforward than comparing live specimens,” (Wells 68). Inferring evolutionary relationships by using fossil record isn’t always consistent or fully the truth because not all features are preserved. Therefore it is even harder inferring relationships with fossil record than the use of live species or specimen (Wells 68). However textbooks still use the study of vertebrate limbs for evidence of Darwin’s theory of Evolution. They use them to illustrate homology and that homology is evidence for common ancestry. This brings us back to the point that Darwinists are using pieces of information found and put in towards the paradigm of Evolution. However, this information isn’t really evidence if it can be put towards other ideas. The 1999 edition of Teresa and Gerald Audesirk’s Biology: Life on Earth says that, “internally similar structures are called homologous structures, meaning that they have the same evolutionary origin,” (qtd. in Wells 77). Biologists in favor of Darwinism and textbook creators define homology as common descent scientifically which doesn’t allow students to see that this definition is false and causes of circular reasoning.
This chapter on homology in vertebrate limbs is an example of the paradigmatic status of modern evolutionary theory because biologists are twisting many different icon of Evolution into actually being facts which in turn makes it seem like Evolution is a fact, when in actuality it is a theory. They are twisting data and making it evidence for Evolution which makes it a paradigm because in paradigms you can put data towards many different studies. Kuhn wrote about how paradigms control what questions are relevant and the data that can be put towards that paradigm so that it is favorable towards it. However, Wells makes it clear in his book on the icons found in Evolution that these icons are seen as factual information but are not even close. Evolution has become a paradigm because biologists shun any person who attempts to dismember the theory of Evolution as having faults. In the end though, our world is not close to finding out the whole truth of life and how life came to be how it is today. Instead we are going through paradigm after paradigm hoping that hopefully we will make it to the truth at some point, whenever that may be.