What is a paradigm shift?

Question

What is a paradigm shift?

Answer 1

A paradigm is our perception of reality, our view of the world. It is our interpretation of events based on previous teaching we have received. If our paradigm is based only on our input from the media of conventional newspapers, magazines, radio, television, Hollywood films, public education etc., may God help us, for we will only see things the way they, the elite and wealthy rulers of this world who control these sources of information, want us to see things! This is often the opposite of the Truth. In short,A paradigm shift means to have a sudden change in perception, a sudden change in point of view, of how you see things.

Answer 2

it is a culture shock process

Answer 3

A paradigm is a model of reality -- or a system of facts, theories, and philosophies--that is widely accepted and becomes the framework for thinking about a scientific problem.

When new discoveries call into question an existing paradigm the result is called a "paradigm shift."

When in 1929, for instance, Edwin P. Hubble and others discovered that the universe was expanding, the old model or paradigm of the universe was replaced with a new one. The rise of quantum physics early in the last century created a new paradigm in physics, replacing the strictly Newtonian concepts.

Answer 4

Thomas Kuhn's, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, deals with this definition.  A paradigm shift is the change from one interpretation of a phenomenon to another based upon evidence which supports such new interpretation and basically refutes the former.  It need not be a total reversal of understanding however.  Rather the shift may simply involve defining or describing something from a different perspective.  That is, different from its original definition.  Such differences, then, lead to a crisis of contradiction.  

"At this point a new paradigm, which subsumes the old results along with the anomalous results into one framework, is accepted. This is termed revolutionary science."  (wiki)

Kuhn's classic example was that of philogen and oxygen.  Before the attributes comprising "air" could be separated, due to the lack of scientific equipment or experimental method, the gas was termed "philogen."  When it was possible to separate the different gases one from another, the term oxygen was coined.  Since the theory that air is comprised of gases that theory is considered sound and still exists, but, because of the contradiction (air is made up of more than one gas) the theory of philogen was discarded.  Resulting in a shift of the paradigm.