#Paradigm shift meaning update#
#Paradigm shift meaning plus#
#Paradigm shift meaning series#

The electron microscope has not been left out, with progress in cryotomography and other techniques, plus various scanning probe microscopes. The optical microscope is now transcending the barrier of physical resolution, thanks to an array of fancy methods with acronyms such as SI, PALM, STORM. Optical tweezer technology permits the study of single molecules in action – polymerizing, stretching, pulling, twisting. How things have changed! Now, every aspect of biology has benefited from technical developments in microscopy, from the ability to visualize single molecules, often within living cells, to the discovery of bacterial cytoskeleton-like structures, to the ability to 'crawl' inside cells to see what they are made of. Enormously contributory as it was, visual it was not. For much of its recent history, the chemical way of looking at things biological prevailed. Ours is the Age of Imaging Current biology has rendezvoused with its visual origins. It's fair to say that we know more about these species than about any other bacteria, perhaps more than about any other living things.

#Paradigm shift meaning update#

We published an update in 2000 and now there is a journal EcoSalPlus, dedicated to publishing our growing knowledge of these bacteria along with others. So much is known about its structure and metabolism that our knowledge of it (and its close cousin Salmonella) was covered in 1996 in two fat volumes called ' Escherichia coli and Salmonella', totaling over 3000 pages (Mamma mia!). Foremost in our acquaintance is a species that most of us carry in our gut, Escherichia coli. What Do We Know Of Bacteria As Organisms? What a question! Given the enormity of the microbial world, we can only reduce it to a few paradigms. And I haven't even mentioned the viruses!

Both quantitatively and qualitatively, much of the planet's metabolism is microbial. We can securely contend that geologic and atmospheric transactions cannot be envisioned without including the activities of microbes. Metagenomic techniques allow a census of the microbes present in almost any habitat. Prokaryotic and eukaryotic microbes share the work, perhaps almost equally. In the oceans, microbes carry out about as much photosynthesis as all land plants combined. Here, metabolism is thought to be slow and unhurried, yet the total flux contributes meaningfully to geochemical activities. Much of this enormous global cargo is found in underground water occupying the spaces within the rocks. Still, it came as a surprise some years ago when it was calculated that the Earth's extant biomass is hugely microbial, the microbes comprising perhaps one tenth the total weight of all living things. The Planetary Prevalence of Microbes It has been known for centuries that massive rock deposits such as limestone, biogenic silica, and coal are of biological origin, much of it microbial in nature. This view does not diminish their grandeur and luster. I have no doubt but that eventually they will lead to important generalizations, but not quite yet. Here I will posit that many of the most exciting current developments in microbiology qualify as paradigm drifts because they are distinctly work in progress. Surely, readers will want to add to or subtract from this list since, since, as I implied above, there is considerable room for opinions.

My purpose here is primarily to elicit discussion. I realize that making such choices may be audacious, but it is meant to be merely a personal statement. Each of them can be reduced to a generalization that, let us hope, is both gracefully simple and exceedingly far-reaching. I present here examples of what in my mind constitute paradigm shifts and drifts in microbiology. The definition does not readily lend itself to quantitative analysis, and I will use a personal reading of Kuhn's terms. Borrowing from the language of influenza virology, I will call the latter 'paradigm drifts.' How do these concepts apply to the microbial sciences?Ī paradigm shift, in the Kuhnian view, must have these attributes: unprecedented, open-ended, broad, simple, and fruitful.

#Paradigm shift meaning series#

In 1962, Thomas Kuhn wrote a book of seminal importance, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, wherein he introduced the concept of 'paradigm shift.' Kuhn proposed that science advances through a ' series of peaceful interludes punctuated by intellectually violent revolutions,' in which 'one conceptual world view is replaced by another.' Paradigm shifts occur rapidly other significant insights take their time in developing and are the stuff of 'normal' science. The original version of this essay appeared in a 2009 issue of ASM's magazine, Microbe.