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attention to these radical renewals and discontinuities in history when he dealswith scientific revolutions.Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.zaScientific revolutionsA radical break in the normal course of research has its origins in a growingawareness of the existence of a contradiction or an anomaly, i.e. with therecognition that nature has somehow violated the paradigm-inducedexpectations that govern normal science. When new empirical facts arediscovered that are not predicted by the paradigm, or that are entirelyunexpected in terms of paradigmatic expectations, we are confronted by ananomaly. Not until the paradigm has been adapted to such an extent that thenew fact may be accommodated, and the unexpected becomes the expected,does the anomaly disappear. Becoming aware of the existence of an anomalydoes therefore, not necessarily lead to the rejection of a paradigm. Normalresearch is specifically a process of continuous problem solving. The questionis there fore: What distinguishes an anomaly from the normal type of problemwith which a researcher is confronted every day? Kuhn’s answer is: When theparadigm cannot be adapted to accommodate the particular problem, we areprobably faced with an anomaly. The same would obviously apply to thesituation where theoretical problems are generated that cannot beaccommodated by the paradigm.When, therefore, the research community is confronted by (1) insolubleempirical and theoretical problems, and (2) these problems affect the core o thecommunity’s commitments to the existing paradigm, then, according t Kuhn’sview, we are faced with a crisis within that discipline. In the short term, thecrisis situation is usually dealt with by means of a variety of ad hoc measures,but in the long run, a crisis invariably results in the rejection of the inadequateparadigm. This step, which is known as the scientific revolution, can, however,only take place if an alternative paradigm is available. Once an alternative ofthis nature is available, parts of the research community will reject the existingparadigm in favour of the new one, until the stage is reached where themajority support the new one. Once this stage has bee attained, we have onceagain entered a phase of normal science. The whole process may berepresented in the following manner:Problems → anomalies → crisis → revolution →↑ alternative ↑normal scienceScientific revolutions may be defined as those discontinuities or noncumulativeepisodes in the history of a discipline in which an existing ainadequate paradigm is replaced by a new one. Examples of this are to found inthe rejection of the Ptolemaic system in favour of the Copernican149