The Dominant Paradigm Circa 1750
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Paradigm defined:
- According to the American Heritage Dictionary a paradigm is: “a set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality for the community that shares them, especially in an intellectual discipline.”
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In simple terms a paradigm is the way a group of people see the world.
- A paradigm is their “reality.”
- It is like a set of “glasses” or “lenses” through which one views the world.
- Paradigms can change, just like when one changes a pair of glasses. However, these paradigm shifts are not common.
- Example: the dominant paradigm in Western culture (Europe, US, etc.) in 1750 was the Judeo–Christian belief system, based on the Bible.
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Two Key Assumptions of the Judeo–Christian Paradigm
- All species were created once and are fixed (not changing).
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The earth was very young.
- In 1650, James Ussher, using genealogies in the Bible, calculated that the earth was created in 4004 B.C.E.
The Judeo–Christian Paradigm and Linnaeus: A Case Study in World Views
How The Dominant Paradigm Dictates How You See the World
- Carolus Linnaeus (1707–1778) desired to find order in the diversity of life.
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In searching for this order he founded the science of taxonomy—the branch of biology concerned with organizing, classifying, and properly naming all living things.
- He gave us the binomial system (bi: two; nomial: name) that we still use today: genus and species.
- Example: Homo sapiens (genus Homo, species sapiens)
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Linnaeus's Paradigm
- Species were created once by God, and they never changed.
- His classification system had no evolutionary assumptions: organisms were similar to one another, not because they shared any evolutionary history, but because God chose to create organisms using similar body plans.
Paradigm Shift #1: James Hutton, The Man Who Found Time
- A paradigm shift occurs when a new set of ideas overthrows an old paradigm.
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James Hutton was the first person to suggest that the earth was much older than 4004 B.C.E.
- He is considered the “father of geology” (the study of the Earth).
- His “ah-hah” moment occurred at Siccar Point, north of Edinburgh, Scotland, pictured here.
- Let's see how it happened…
- Hutton realized that weathering processes (rain, snow, ice, wind, etc.) causes rock to be broken down into sediment which washes into the ocean forming horizontal beds.
- This sediment, over time, becomes sedimentary rock.
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This lead to three great ideas:
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New Paradigm #1: Gradualism: Hutton realized these processes took time and were gradual.
- Hutton's idea of gradualism claims that geological processes are the result of these slow, continual processes.
- People had tried to explain geological phenomenon as the result of the dominant paradigm—catastrophism—that a large flood as described in the Bible was responsible; Hutton saw things differently.
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New Paradigm #2: Uniformitarianism: Hutton proposed the idea that the geological processes going on today are the same as those that occurred in the past (mountain building, weathering, etc.).
- The idea that geological processes have been “uniform” throughout time.
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New Paradigm #3: Deep Time: Hutton realized that the earth is much older than 4004 B.C.E.
- Siccar Point “rocked” his world and was probably the place where he had his “ah-hah” moment.