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A paradigm shift is a fundamental change in the basic concepts and experimental practices of a scientific discipline.It is a concept in the philosophy of science that was introduced and brought into the common lexicon by the American physicist and philosopher Thomas Kuhn.
Gradualism, from the Latin gradus ("step"), is a hypothesis, a theory or a tenet assuming that change comes about gradually or that variation is gradual in nature and happens over time as opposed to in large steps. [1] Uniformitarianism, incrementalism, and reformism are similar concepts.
In large-scale natural science, there is need for another time perspective, independent from human activity, and indeed spanning a far longer period (mainly prehistoric), where "geologic era" refers to well-defined time spans. [13] The next-larger division of geologic time is the eon. [14] The Phanerozoic Eon, for example, is subdivided into ...
In particular, he found that philosophy was too preoccupied with words, particularly discourse and debate, rather than actually observing the material world: "For while men believe their reason governs words, in fact, words turn back and reflect their power upon the understanding, and so render philosophy and science sophistical and inactive."
The important legacy of this period included substantial advances in factual knowledge, especially in anatomy, zoology, botany, mineralogy, geography, mathematics and astronomy; an awareness of the importance of certain scientific problems, especially those related to the problem of change and its causes; and a recognition of the methodological ...
Changes occurring around the last ice age (in technical terms, the last glacial period) show that the circulation in the North Atlantic can change suddenly and substantially, leading to global climate changes, even though the total amount of energy coming into the climate system did not change much.
The word statistics, when referring to the scientific discipline, is singular, as in "Statistics is an art." [10] This should not be confused with the word statistic, referring to a quantity (such as mean or median) calculated from a set of data, [11] whose plural is statistics ("this statistic seems wrong" or "these statistics are misleading").
A scientific theory is an explanation of an aspect of the natural world and universe that can be or that has been repeatedly tested and has corroborating evidence in accordance with the scientific method, using accepted protocols of observation, measurement, and evaluation of results.