Abstract
The processes involved in the progress of scientific knowledge have fascinated philosophers, scientific workers and non-scientists. Kuhn (1970), in his interesting essay on the structure of scientific revolutions, sees the road which the growth of scientific knowledge follows, not marked by discoveries but by what he names paradigms, ‘theories that gain their status because they are more successful than their competitors in solving a few problems …’ which are recognized as acute. Examples of paradigms in biology are, e.g. Berthold’s conceptualization of endocrinology in 1849; Mendel’s theory of inheritance; Medawar’s concept of immunological tolerance, etc.