Kuhn (Reprise)

Like many of my classmates, my reaction to our first assignment to read The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, by Thomas S. Kuhn, was "Why?" That was followed by "An MLIS? What was I thinking?" Gradually, I have been seeing the significance of the work. The phrases scientific revolution and paradigm shift keep popping up in other required texts. Most recently, Tim O'Reilly discusses Kuhn in his article entitled "The Open Source Paradigm Shift", one of the entries in Perspectives on Free and Open Source Software. Also, I just finished reading Linked, by Barabasi, who also uses Kuhn's terms in his book.

Even though reading Kuhn's book was a struggle, I now appreciate how his ideas are incorporated in the works of other authors to this day. Now, when I read the phrases he coined, I think of Kuhn's book (even when his name is not mentioned).

I never thought I'd say this, but I now know why we had to read it!