This blog post reexamines the meaning of the scientific imagination presented in the film Interstellar, exploring whether it represents a revolution that transcends the limits of existing normal science or an extension of scientific accumulation.
Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi film ‘Interstellar’ has been a hot topic lately. Set on Earth where severe dust storms have caused food shortages and hope seems lost, ‘Interstellar’ follows protagonist Cooper and NASA astronauts as they embark on a mission to find a new habitable planet for humanity. While the film’s massive scale, traversing our galaxy and beyond, certainly contributes to its appeal, its greatest draw is likely the introduction of a five-dimensional concept where time is one axis and human intervention is possible. Particularly chilling is the explanation that the ghostly, surreal phenomenon is created by humans trapped in this fifth dimension using the concept of gravity—an element unaffected by time.
As an additional point of interest, ‘Interstellar’ garnered significant attention not only for its dramatic visual effects but also for its visually compelling portrayal of scientifically sound theories. The film, with the consultation of world-renowned physicist Kip Thorne, visually realized complex theories like the theory of relativity, black holes, wormholes, and the warping of space-time. Thanks to this realistic portrayal of scientific concepts, ‘Interstellar’ stimulated intellectual curiosity in audiences beyond mere entertainment. It stands as an excellent example of how modern scientific theories can be utilized in film, delivering a fresh shock to viewers through the fusion of science and art.
In the film, the protagonist Cooper’s daughter solves a new equation, finding a scientific answer to the surreal phenomenon of the fifth dimension. Thomas Samuel Kuhn (1922-1996) viewed the emergence of phenomena that cannot be explained by existing scientific theories in the modern era, and the resulting revolution within the scientific community to explain these phenomena, as the dawn of a new era in the development of science. Thomas Kuhn’s argument, presented in his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, established a new scientific perspective by clearly explaining historical cases that existing inductivists or falsificationists could not account for.
However, there remains significant skepticism regarding the actual occurrence of scientific development through revolutionary science. This blog post will explain Thomas Kuhn’s argument, which divided scientific development into normal science and scientific revolutions, and discuss the validity of his claim based on two grounds.
Thomas Kuhn’s view of science focuses on the revolutionary nature inherent in scientific progress. In other words, the revolution that triggers scientific progress occurs when one theoretical structure is abandoned and replaced by another mutually incompatible theory. The independent system that dominates a specific period, including this theoretical structure, is called a paradigm. Kuhn termed the theoretical structure of science operating within such a single paradigm as normal science. That is, normal science consists of the general theoretical assumptions and laws adopted by the scientific community within a paradigm. Scientists operating within normal science assume that the paradigm can provide solutions to problems raised within it. A paradigm develops through the attempts of scientists working within normal science to explain the world.
However, since no single paradigm can explain all phenomena, scientists’ attempts to account for phenomena eventually encounter difficulties. This is termed a state of crisis. To overcome this crisis, a completely new paradigm emerges. As more and more scientists come to believe in and adopt the new paradigm, abandoning the old one, the crisis is resolved. Kuhn called this discontinuous change a scientific revolution. Ultimately, scientific progress advances by repeating the cycle: normal science → crisis → revolution → new normal science → new crisis.
A crucial point here is that, according to Kuhn, a scientific revolution is not merely the emergence of a new theory; it is only when the entire scientific community accepts that theory that a true revolution occurs. During this process, scholars clinging to the old paradigm gradually become a minority or transform into supporters of the new theory. This perspective is fascinating because it shows scientific development is not merely a logical progression but is influenced by social and psychological factors. Furthermore, it emphasizes that paradigm shifts in this process constitute a comprehensive revolution, transforming not only scientific discoveries but also the academic and social contexts surrounding them.
Kuhn argues that the factors driving members of the normal scientific community to shift to a new paradigm are irrational elements, likening paradigm shifts to Gestalt shifts or religious conversions.
However, I question whether such an irrational scientific revolution, as Thomas Kuhn claims, truly exists. I believe there is no conceptual discord sufficiently broad to meet the criteria for revolution as he envisions it. Kuhn was too deeply entrenched in the dichotomy of normal science versus revolutionary science. The fact that scientific progress did not occur through revolutionary upheavals, as Kuhn claimed, can be supported by two grounds.
The first ground is that the criteria distinguishing revolutionary change from normal minor change are highly ambiguous. If we cannot distinguish minor changes from revolutions, Thomas Kuhn’s argument, which sought to explain scientific progress by dividing it into normal science and scientific revolutions, loses its logic. Where exactly do normal, incremental changes to resolve anomalous cases within a paradigm end, and where do revolutionary changes begin? The difference between revolutionary and normal change ultimately boils down to a matter of degree. Kuhn does not provide a clear answer to this problem. As an example of this first argument, let us examine the history of paleontology in the mid-19th century.
In mid-19th century paleontology, one revolution was the theory of catastrophes. This theory emphasized the complete discontinuities found in geological remains, asserting that these discontinuities were caused by supernatural events too violent to be scientifically explained. In other words, these discontinuities were evidence that cataclysmic events, unprecedented in Earth’s history, had occurred. This directly challenged the existing paradigm that the factors driving geological change were always of the same kind and that Earth’s history consisted of repeated identical changes. Since the existing paradigm could not possibly explain these discontinuities, the theory gained support from many scientists. As Kuhn argued, a crisis emerged within the old paradigm, and many scientists began shifting toward the new paradigm of cataclysmic tectonics.
However, the gap between the two paradigms narrowed as new evidence emerged. First, Charles Darwin observed the effects of an earthquake that shifted the relative positions of geological strata by as much as 20 feet. Consequently, normal scientists within the old paradigm gradually shifted their thinking toward accepting that discontinuities could arise from a single cataclysm. Conversely, normal scientists within the new paradigm discovered through research that explaining discontinuities required scaling down the magnitude of cataclysms and increasing their frequency beyond what they had initially conceived. Thus, they gradually shifted their thinking toward viewing even dramatic cataclysms as extensions of geological phenomena. Ultimately, the two paradigms gradually converged toward each other, meeting at an intermediate stage that demonstrated how revolutionary upheavals were actually extensions of minor fluctuations.
At the time, the theory of crustal upheaval gained significant support from scientists as a new paradigm that overcame the crisis of discontinuity faced by the existing paradigm. However, it turned out that the great upheaval was merely an extension of the small variations already proposed by the existing paradigm. Ultimately, the boundary between great upheaval and small variation became blurred, showing that the development of science called a revolution was actually part of a series of small changes. The theory of the great upheaval in perception aptly pointed out the blurred boundary between revolutionary science and normal science.
The second reason why Kuhn’s theory of scientific revolution fails to logically explain the history of science is that it is difficult to argue that revolutionary changes occur independently without normal, incremental changes. The development of science does not occur discontinuously through a single irrational revolution, but rather step by step, based on rational grounds. Even a major shift that appears to be an irrational revolution is only possible because of the vast accumulation of rational data and knowledge that preceded it. I will support the fact that scientific progress arises not from a single irrational revolution but from the accumulation of rational evidence through Charles Darwin’s (1809–1882) theory of evolution and the concept of common descent.
Even before Charles Darwin proposed the theory of evolution—that living things evolve—and the theory of common descent—that all modern life forms diverged from a common ancestor—many scholars had advocated for evolution and common descent. For instance, around 600 BC, Anaximander, a Greek scientist and philosopher, argued that humans and other living things all originated from a common ancestor. However, the social context of ancient Greece at the time could not accept such claims, and there was a lack of biological evidence to support this theory of evolution. Even after that, the theory of evolution and the concept of common descent were continuously proposed, but they were ignored by the scientific community due to insufficient biological evidence.
Then, at age 22, Charles Darwin embarked on a five-year voyage aboard the naval vessel HMS Beagle as a naturalist, during which he began collecting evidence to support the theory of evolution. Even after the five-year voyage, Darwin spent a full twenty years refining his ideas. This signifies he had ample time to accumulate rational data and knowledge. After such extensive research, Darwin published ‘On the Origin of Species’. The numerous pieces of evidence presented in ‘On the Origin of Species’ led people to begin accepting the theory of evolution as fact. Even before Charles Darwin published ‘On the Origin of Species’, the theory of evolution and the concept of common descent already existed. However, the reason previous theories of evolution were not accepted until Darwin published ‘On the Origin of Species’ was that, unlike Darwin, they lacked rational evidence. Darwin, on the other hand, accumulated rational and scientific data over several decades. In other words, Darwin’s theory of evolution and the concept of common descent did not represent a revolutionary shift to a new paradigm; rather, they emerged as a new paradigm through inductive observation and the accumulation of rational data.
If scientific progress developed through the long accumulation of evidence, Kuhn’s claim that a paradigm shifts due to a single irrational revolution loses its logic. This argument—that gradual observation accumulates to form new concepts and further gives birth to new laws—erodes the boundary between normal science and scientific revolution. Ultimately, the first argument—that the very existence of scientific revolutions is questionable due to the ambiguous boundary between major revolutions and normal changes—and the second argument—that new laws emerge from the accumulation of incremental observations—comprehensively critique Thomas Kuhn’s claim distinguishing normal science from scientific revolution. Revolutions do not exist; there are only small changes within normal science and differences in their degree. Furthermore, what we call revolutions are not irrational choices by scientists to resolve crises, but merely new laws born from the accumulation of progressive observations.
Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions deserves praise for breaking free from the fixed image held by the existing view of science. That is, the argument that science develops not through the traditional sense of progress—by inductive observation or by finding new propositions through falsification of propositions—but rather moves revolutionarily toward a new paradigm is highly compelling. However, I find this argument logically flawed. Distinguishing between revolutionary change and incremental change is highly ambiguous. Rather, viewing the relationship between revolutionary change and incremental change as continuous is a more accurate description. I sought to illustrate this ambiguity of boundaries through the story of mid-19th century paleontology. Moreover, I argued that science develops not through irrational revolution but through rational, step-by-step progression, supported by Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution and the common descent hypothesis.
In the past, political historians often declared revolutions had occurred when confronted with intense political upheavals. However, they soon realized that revolutions do not actually involve such absolute and thoroughgoing disruptions of continuity. This is because, upon examining any revolution, political continuities have invariably led to it. In my view, the distinction Thomas Kuhn draws between scientific revolutions and normal science should similarly be understood. I wonder if, in the development of science too, revolutions are merely the continuity of small changes.
