Running Head: Galaxy, Solar System and Cosmos 1
Running Head: Galaxy, Solar System and Cosmos 2
Galaxy, Solar System and Cosmos
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Introduction
Epistemology refers to the philosophical branch of studies that deals with knowledge. This branch seeks to provide an answer to the basic question on what distinguishes true knowledge from false knowledge (Christian & McNeill, 2011). By looking the history of epistemology, one is able to discern the clear trend in the spite of the confounding and seemingly contradictory opinions. On the contrary, a paradigm shift refers to the term applied in describing any major shift while trying to understand the basic framework and the assumptions of a discipline or field of study. The term was first employed by Thomas Kuhn, an American historian, physicist and philosopher in his book in describing a change in the foundational speculations within the reigning theory and assumption of science. Kuhn argues that scientific thinking differs from thinking in the humanities and philosophies in that systematical scientific thinking is inflexible (Christian, Brown & Benjamin, 2013).
The real computation of Thomas Kuhn’s importance relies not on the communicability of his concepts but in the fact that he singlehandedly refined how people think about mankind’s most organized attempt in understanding the world. Before Kuhn, peoples’ view concerning science was purely dominated by philosophical ideas (Christian, Brown & Benjamin, 2013). Additionally, Kuhn’s central claim indicated that careful study of the timeline of science revealed that development in any scientific field occurs via a sequence of phases. He further explained that a community of researchers who share a common intellectual framework known as a paradigm model or a “disciplinary matrix” participate in resolving puzzles thrown up by discrepancies between what the paradigm predicts and what is unveiled by experiment or observation. Mostly, the peculiarities are resolved by incremental adjustments to the paradigm or by revealing experimental or observational error. Thus Thomas’ idea of using a paradigm as an intellectual framework tool that makes research possible (Christian & McNeill, 2011).
During the 4th century, one of the philosophers, a Greek by the name Aristotle, demonstrated a geocentric cosmos or universe explaining that the earth is spherical and located at the nucleus or centre, encompassed by concentric astronomical spheres of stars and planets (Christian & McNeill, 2011). Though he presumed the universe was finite and fixed in size, he further accentuated that it existed unchanged and invariable throughout eternity. Besides, Aristotle definitively substantiated the four simply classical elements such as air, fire, water and earth, which were controlled and acted upon by two forces namely, levity gravity. He later included another element known as ether, to describe and relate the vacuum that occupies the universe beyond the earthly (terrestrial) sphere. Over the past century, several branches of science, scientists and physicists commenced sewing together the story of a historical cosmos that is believed to have emerged some 13.7 billion years ago. Magnitude of the evolution story has dawned on humans to the realization of the expansiveness and complication of this unfolding process (Christian, Brown & Benjamin, 2013).
While the story is becoming available to the human community, humans are becoming aware of the multidimensional environmental emergency and the rapid destruction of species and habitation around the planet (Hester et al, 2005). As people are realizing the huge span of time over which the universe has evolved, they are acknowledging their late arrival in this phenomenal process. It is believed that if scientific cosmological brings about understanding of origins and unveiling of the universe, philosophical manifestation on scientific cosmology offers the humans a sense of belonging in the universe. Scientists and physicists are no longer abiding completely afar from their discoveries and their studies. In addition, they are helping humans to witness the beauty and complexity of life and its emergence over billions of years. Since the earliest expressions of human culture, humankind has struggled to fathom and define our place in the universe. Kuhn’s paradigm has helped scientists to develop cosmologies- stories describing our origin and destination (Christian, Brown & Benjamin, 2013).
According to Thomas, a dependable mature science experiences alternating aspects of ordinary science and transformations (Christian, Brown & Benjamin, 2013). Within normal science discipline the critical theories, values, instruments and metaphysical suppositions that consist the disciplinary matrices remain fixed, allowing the accumulative generation of mystify answers, whereas in technological or scientific revolution disciplinary matrices go through correction, in order to allow the result of the most serious exceptional puzzles that distressed the foregoing period of ordinary science. Scientists and astronomers believe that galaxies started forming roughly 13 billion years ago (Hester et al, 2005). The origin of galaxies and how they evolved over billions of years is still an active field of research in astronomy today. A consequence of the Big Bang theory is the over time. Despite all the explanations scientists have tried to come up with, the Big Bang remains to be a mystery in various ways. Astronomers have a lot of evidential information for what occurred or transpired after the events but what existed before it can only be presumed and guessed (Christian & McNeill, 2011).
However, we comprehensively understand that the Big Bang is a significant threshold since it created space, time and the building blocks for everything that is known in the Universe. Today, the hot Big Bang model is the most successful scientific theory explaining evolution and the origin of the universe (Christian, Brown & Benjamin, 2013). None of the alternate theories has been able to satisfactorily account for the range of observable natural occurrences that are intrinsic components of Big Bang cosmology. Nonetheless, there are still lingering questions which must be determined and hypothetical assumptions which will be practically tested for the first time in the coming decades and centuries (Hester et al, 2005). Cosmology, however, remains an open field, and its enormous body of evidence makes scientists confident that the Big Bang model will continue providing the bodywork upon which new inventions and discoveries will be build. This threshold provides connections between the Big Bang and today’s world. Understanding the relevance and the origin of the Big Bang helps one to engage more with the theories related to the Bing Bang which are difficult to understand (Christian & McNeill, 2011).
The second threshold of increasing complexity in the study of cosmology is the birth of the stars. Scientists believe that the universe was relatively cold and dark until the stars lit up. Intense heat, pressure and energy generated by stars eventually led to more complexities like planets and life (Christian & McNeill, 2011). This threshold is crossed repeatedly as new stars form continually in places or locations in the universe called nebulae. The different stars were born, lived and died over millions and billions of years. Stars of different sizes and masses have different life cycles. Furthermore, early scientists speculated the third threshold, which hypothesized that the earth and heaven were made of an intrinsic group of elements. Their perspective was straightforward but they manifested it to be right. They theorized that there where invisibly intense processes of chemical production which resulted to almost everything around us. They explained that different elements joined, collided and broke apart and later rejoined in a very ferocious radioactive phase in the life of the planets. Aristotle’s ideas and opinions in the 4th century made sense as they were seemingly confirmed by observation. He had indicated that the sun and moon seemed to orbit around the earth as did the stars which apparently never changed their positions in relation to one another (Hester et al, 2005).
The fourth threshold involves the earth and the solar system. Astronomers and scientists believed that the sun was formed in the same manner as other stars. The solar system is composed of an average star called the sun and nine planets (Hester et al, 2005). It also comprises the planets’ satellites such as, comets, meteoroids, asteroids and the interplanetary medium. The sun provides a richer resource of electromagnetic energy within the solar system. On the other hand, the changes in stellar anatomy provided a clear indication of an evolving universe. Modern science has approached the problem of origins in many differing ideological ways with some proving more satisfying than others. The study of this modern science has therefore tried to answer questions about origin using carefully tested data and rigorous logic. Philosophers and scientists have for long sought to verify the origin and evolution of cosmos also known as the universe. However, in the quest for establishing the truth, these great minds have come up with conflicting ideas and theories concerning the Big Bang leaving many unanswered and unresolved questions in peoples’ minds (Christian & McNeill, 2011).
References
Christian, D., Brown, C., & Benjamin, C. (2013). Big history: between nothing and everything.
Christian, D., & McNeill, W. H. (2011). Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History, With a New Preface (Vol. 2). Univ of California Press.
Hester, J. J., Desch, S. J., Healy, K. R., & Leshin, L. A. (2005). The cradle of the solar system. Scientific Information about the Universe and the Scientific Theories of the Evolution of the Universe: An Anthology of Current Thought, 177.
