2012: Paradigm Shifts in Science: Insights from the Arts
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
FOREWORD Paradigm shifts in science: insights from the arts Joseph L Goldstein This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of sider the Higgs particle, which high-energy ative Paul Krugman op-ed piece in The New the publication of a highly influential book, physicists believe to be fundamental for the York Times entitled “The Ponzi Paradigm.” The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by the existence of all matter. On the one hand, in the One of the most surprising anomalies in physicist and historian Thomas Kuhn1. This Kuhnian sense, finding the Higgs particle is relation to Kuhn is the lack of any mention is the book that introduced the world to the normal science operating in the context of the in Structure of the two greatest paradigm principles of “paradigms” and “paradigm existing paradigm of the standard model of shifts in the biological sciences—Darwinism shifts.” Ironically, it is also the book in which particle physics. On the other hand, not find- and Mendelism. The most likely explanation the author underwent his own paradigm shift ing the authentic Higgs particle would be a is that Kuhn was totally focused on physics, by debunking the prevailing theory of how paradigm-shifting anomaly, pointing to a new which in the 1950s and 1960s was top scien- scientific progress comes about. physics beyond the standard model. tific dog. Prior to Kuhn’s 1962 book, historians and Speaking of anomalies, there are several It is ironic that the year in which Structure philosophers of science considered the scien- that surround Thomas Kuhn. How did a appeared was the same year in which the tific enterprise to be a rational endeavor in scientist who was passed over for tenure at first molecular structures of DNA and pro- which progress and knowledge are achieved Harvard write one of the great books of the tein were awarded Nobel Prizes—one in through the steady, day-to-day, painstaking last 50 years—a book that has become a cul- Physiology or Medicine to James Watson and accumulation of experimental data, accred- tural icon like 1984 and The Double Helix? Francis Crick and the other in Chemistry to ited facts and new discoveries. Kuhn referred Since its publication in 1962, The Structure Max Perutz and John Kendrew. If ever a sci- to this traditional approach as “normal sci- of Scientific Revolutions has sold 1.5 million ence was on the verge of a paradigm shift, it ence,” and he used the then-obscure word copies in 16 languages, is still required reading was molecular biology in 1962. The genetic paradigm to refer to the shared ideas and in courses in the history and philosophy of code had just been cracked, and recombinant concepts that guide the members of a given science and is cited more often than the clas- DNA and gene cloning were just around the scientific field. sic works of Sigmund Freud, Noam Chomsky corner. To paraphrase Virginia Woolf, on or Kuhn’s great insight was to realize that real and James Watson. Its success is even more about December 10, 1962, the world of sci- progress did not result from the puzzle-solving surprising when one takes a look at its first ence changed. of normal science. Instead, he argued that review published in Scientific American in What about paradigm shifts in the arts? true breakthroughs arise in a totally different 1962. The last sentence reads: “The book Kuhn believed that great works of art retain way—when the discovery of anomalies leads succeeds in presenting sound but familiar their value throughout time even in the face scientists to question the paradigm, and this reflections on the nature of science; it is also of new revolutionary movements. To quote in turn leads to a scientific revolution that much ado about very little.” So much for bad Kuhn, “Picasso’s success has not relegated he termed paradigm shift. Kuhn based his reviews! Rembrandt’s paintings to the storage vaults of model on the classic paradigm shifts in phys- The most obvious reason for Structure’s art museums.”2 So what should we call Pablo ics, including the Copernican, Newtonian and astonishing success is the thought-provoking Picasso’s and Georges Braque’s transition from Einsteinian revolutions, the development of way in which Kuhn framed his thesis, adorn- impressionism to cubism or Jackson Pollock’s quantum mechanics, which replaced classi- ing it with the two unfamiliar but sexy catch- and Willem de Kooning’s transition from real- cal mechanics at the subatomic level, and the words. In the last ten years, paradigm and ism to abstract expressionism? If they are not accidental discovery of X-rays by Roentgen, paradigm shift have pervaded virtually every paradigm shifts, given the cutthroat competi- one of the great unanticipated anomalies in aspect of our culture. Today, you can purchase tive nature of the art world, what about para- the history of science. audio and video equipment from Paradigm digm rifts? Or paradigm tiffs? In one sense, Kuhn viewed normal science Electronics in Ontario, Canada; you can buy as a mopping-up operation. Yet he did rec- bonds and stocks from Paradigm Financial James Rosenquist and instantly forming ognize the essential importance of normal Partners in the UK; you can obtain solu- ideas science, appreciating that most discoveries tions to your human resource problems from Although Kuhn’s paradigm model may not occur during periods of normal science. To Paradigm Shift Consulting Service, Ltd. in be strictly relevant to the arts, artists have illustrate with a contemporary example, con- India; or—best of all—you can read a provoc- nonetheless shed light on a key question that NATURE MEDICINE VOLUME 18 | NUMBER 10 | OCTOBER 2012 iii FOREWORD was never answered by Kuhn: Where do the abc daring ideas in science that bring on para- digm shifts come from? Some ideas, accord- ing to the American artist James Rosenquist, arise explosively in a light-bulb moment in the middle of the night. Rosenquist is one of America’s most creative contemporary art- ists. Together with Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, he was one of the three found- ing members of the Pop Art movement in the 1960s. One of his signature paintings of 1960, entitled President-Elect, shows a charismatic President John F. Kennedy juxtaposed with a Figure 1 Instantly forming ideas. (a) James Rosenquist, Idea—Middle of the Night, 2007. Light bulb, woman’s hand holding a piece of devil’s food pencil and electric wiring on painted wood. 7.5 × 12 × 12 inches. (b) James Rosenquist, Idea, 2:50 cake and with a 1960 Pontiac. The devil’s a.m., 2007. Oil on canvas. 57 × 44 inches. (c) James Rosenquist, Idea, 3:50 a.m., 2007. Oil on food cake is a stand-in for a tempting female, canvas. 63 × 49 inches. Exhibited at Acquavella Gallery, New York, New York. and the car is astonishingly prophetic, fore- shadowing by three years Kennedy’s ill-fated matic way. Penone’s most recent installation hearts were placed in separate salt solutions. motorcade death. was commissioned as the centerpiece for this When Loewi stimulated the vagus nerve of Now that Rosenquist is approaching year’s Documenta exhibition of contempo- the first heart, it beat slower. Then, when he 80 years of age, his artistic interests have rary art, which takes place every five years in took the fluid from this stimulated heart and shifted from visualizing popular culture to Kassel, Germany4. added it to the second heart that had no vagus visualizing the philosophy of ideas. According Penone’s piece, entitled Idee di pietra (Ideas nerve, the second heart beat slower, proving to Rosenquist, “A good idea that spurs you on of Stone), consists of a bronze structure of a that a soluble chemical, which turned out to to do something should have pictorial power. large nut tree (30 feet tall) with a stone lodged be acetylcholine, was released from the vagus After all, what does a great idea look like?” high in its branches (Fig. 2). The stone is a nerve and controlled the heart rate. So, in 2007, Rosenquist created a series of type of granite rock that contains billions of Did the shy and reserved Otto Loewi tell sculptures and paintings that deal with the crystals of silicate minerals that were formed his tale as it really happened? One expects tall origin of ideas3. Figure 1a shows a sculpture over many years by the natural processes of tales from certain Texas Nobel laureates, but entitled Idea—Middle of the Night. The pen- weathering and erosion. Penone purposely not from a taciturn German one. As you will cils that pierce the light bulb articulate the selected a stone that has the shape of a human read in the essays of this year’s Lasker win- hands of a clock. The pencils also have to do brain, thus producing a brain of billions of ners, the daring ideas that led to their awards with writing down an idea that pops into your silicate crystals, each crystal possessing a pre- were formed in a complex way that combines head in the wee hours of the night. Figure cise geometry that symbolizes order and logic the slow-hunches of Penone with the instant 1b shows a painting entitled Idea, 2:50 a.m. like great thoughts produced by neurons in light-bulb moments of Rosenquist. The bulb is the light that goes off suddenly in the brain. So in this sense, Penone’s structure your mind in the middle of the night like an is telling us that the big idea forms like the Basic Award: a set of daring intellectual alarm clock.