The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

by Thomas S. Kuhn

Every elementary chemistry text must discuss the concept of a chemical element. Almost always, when that notion is introduced, its origin is attributed to the seventeenth-century chemist, Robert Boyle, in whose Sceptical Chymist the attentive reader will find a definition of ‘element’ quite close to that in use today. Reference to Boyle’s contribution helps to make the neophyte aware that chemistry did not begin with the sulfa drugs; in addition, it tells him that one of the scientist’s traditional tasks is to invent concepts of this sort. As a part of the pedagogic arsenal that makes a man a scientist, the attribution is immensely successful. Nevertheless, it illustrates once more the pattern of historical mistakes that misleads both students and laymen about the nature of the scientific enterprise. According to Boyle, who was quite right, his “definition” of an element was no more than a paraphrase of a traditional chemical concept; Boyle offered it only in order to argue that no such thing as a chemical element exists; as history, the textbook version of Boyle’s contribution is quite mistaken.3 That mistake, of course, is trivial, though no more so than any other misrepresentation of data. What is not trivial, however, is the impression of science fostered when this sort of mistake is first compounded and then built into the technical structure of the text. Like ‘time,’ ‘energy,’ ‘force,’ or ‘particle,’ the concept of an element is the sort of textbook ingredient that i...