Paradigm In Science
(Paradigm) provides a map whose details are elucidated by nature scientific research. And since nature is too complex and varied to be explored a random, that map is as essential as observation and experimentation to science's continuing development. thought the theories they embody, paradigms prove to be constitutive of the research activity
Thomas Kuhn, Book: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
Science has two stages of development...
Normal Science
'Normal Science' means research firmly based upon one or more past scientific achievements, achievements that some particular scientific community acknowledges for a time as supplying the foundation for its further practice.
Kuhn
When someone notices a unexpected result, they try to fit it into the existing knowledge some way. Maybe by tweaking the current theories. There will be cases of dismissing/suppressing the unexpected result as well.
People in 'Normal Science' mode will not look for new theories/ new phenomena. They accept theories on the authority of the teacher and the text, not because of evidence.
Extra-ordinary/ Revolutionary
If the results still do not fit, people will start proposing new theories - that are fundamentally different from the existing systems.
Stages: Pre-Science -> Normal Science -> Model Drift -> Model Crisis -> Modal Revolution -> Paradigm Shift -> (new) Normal Science
Paradigm Shift
This is the conversion from one mode to the other. The choice has to be made almost as a leap of faith - because you cannot use the tools and ideas of one paradigm to judge the other.
He must have faith that the new paradigm will succeed with the many large problem that confront it, knowing only that the older paradigm has failed with a few. A decision of that kind can only be made on faith.