“Should we worry about the reliability of medical knowledge?” asks philosopher John Huss (University of Akron). We consider this question from the perspective of Thomas Kuhn’s classic, 1962 book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Kuhn explains how science does not evolve incrementally, one step following another, but rather undergoes wholesale revolutions disconnected from all that came before. He called these revolutions, “paradigm shifts” (to his everlasting regret). While Kuhn draws mostly from astronomy to make his case, we draw from recent and past medical examples to show how his concept applies to medicine as well. We talk about how various groups dependent on reliable medical knowledge (e.g., patients, health care professionals, educators) can be affected by the possibility of major shifts in established approaches to health care at any time. There’s no escape from reality, as the song goes.

Primary Source Citation
Kuhn T. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 3rd ed, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press; 1996.

Links
Russell Teagarden’s related blog posts on According to the Arts:
-Kuhn’s book, The Structure of Scientific Revolution
-Michel Foucault’s book, The Birth of the Clinic

Dr. Barry Marshall’s story of how he and Dr. Robin Warren engineered the change in peptic ulcer disease from acid based to infection based.
The Clinic & The Person Episode 12 (September, 2023), featuring the paradigm shift from lobotomies and other forms of psychosurgery to psychopharmacology.
Sir Brian May’s bio (guitarist for Queen and PhD-level astrophysicist).

The Clinic & The Person is a podcast developed by our editor Russell Teagarden to summon or quicken the attention of health care professionals, their educators, researchers and others to the interests and plights of people with specific health problems aided through knowledge and perspectives the humanities provide.

Feature photo by National Cancer Institute