(ref.doc)ACM-0697

Communications of the ACM
June 97
The Quality Approach: Is it Delivering?

p 27
The concept of a paradigm was introduce by Thomas Kuhn to explain the
birth and growth of scientific disciplines [The Structure of
Scientific Revolutions, University of Chicago Press, 1970].
[...] Paradigms have the following essential properties:
- Paradigms are difficult to explain, and difficult for individuals
  outside the paradigm to understand.
- Paradigms cannot be proved or disproved by a single crucial
  experiment, but must be judged by accumulated evidence.
- Paradigms tend to be championed by a small group in the face of
  opposition from the larger community, they gain ground very slowly
  until the entire community adopts the new paradigm in a scientific
  revolution.