New paradigms tend to emerge all at once
When someone is deeply immersed in the crisis of a paradigm that is unable to account for certain anomalies, the crisis itself provides the context for the sudden emergence of a new paradigm.
… crisis simultaneously loosens the stereotypes and provides the incremental data necessary for a fundamental paradigm shift. Sometimes the shape of the new paradigm is foreshadowed in the structure that extraordinary research has given to the anomaly. … More often no such structure is consciously seen in advance. Instead, the new paradigm, or a sufficient hint to permit later articulation, emerges all at once, sometimes in the middle of the night, in the mind of a man deeply immersed in crisis.[1]
See also:
- New paradigms are preceded by crisis
- Paradigms change when they can no longer address anomalies
- New paradigms tend to be invented by newcomers