What Is A Paradigm Shift, Anyway?

To define a paradigm shift, we should first look at a definition for a paradigm.

A paradigm is defined as a pattern that may be copied, or a group of ideas about how something should be done, made or thought about.

A paradigm shift is then defined as a major change that happens when a new and different way replaces the regular way of thinking or doing something.

Psychologist Jean Piaget saw children's development as a series of separate stages marked by periods of adjustments. Inspired partly by Piaget, Thomas Kuhn - a physicist, philosopher, and historian of science -proposed two kinds of scientific change:

• Incremental developments in the course of "normal science."
• Scientific revolutions that accentuate the more stable phases.

He proposed that scientific revolutions are not a matter of incremental progress; they involve "paradigm shifts."