When Paradigms Shift

By Keith Boykin, in politics
Tuesday, November 20 2007, 11:31AM

Five stunning news stories in the past 24 hours have changed the landscape of our discussions about major issues overnight. On the local, national and international level, new developments are calling into question our conventional wisdom. Could it be that much of what we thought was true was wrong?

A paradigm shift is a term first used by Thomas Kuhn in his 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions to describe a change in basic assumptions away from a dominant theory. Although Kuhn used the term to refer to science, it is also widely used in other contexts today to refer to a change from one way of thinking to another. That's what we're seeing today in dramatic news stories about the AIDS epidemic, stem cell research, the war in Iraq, the U.S. presidential race, and the city of New Orleans.

The AIDS Epidemic Overstated

First, with AIDS, the United Nations is planning to acknowledge that it has grossly overestimated the AIDS epidemic worldwide. The latest estimates, due to be released publicly today, reduce the number of people infected with HIV worldwide from 40 million to 33 million and lower annual new HIV infections by more than 40 percent from last year's estimate.

Thirty-three million people with HIV is still a huge challenge for society, but the numbers change the way we look at the scope and the speed of the epidemic's expansion. It is possible that observers will look at this information as a sign that we don't need to do more on AIDS, but that would be a mistake. The real lesson, it seems, is that we may be making some progress and we are in reach of stopping the epidemic if we continue to devote resources to the problem.

Stem Cell Research Without Embryos

Second, in another scientific change, scientists are reporting today that they have turned human skin cells into what appear to be embryonic stem cells without having to make or destroy an embryo, thus potentially ending the politically divisive ethical debate that has separated the two sides of the issue. The stem cell issue was an area of contention during the 2006 U.S. midterm elections, but if the scientists are correct, that issue should evaporate in the next election.

The news also has impact on the even more controversial debate over human cloning. The researchers found that their method also creates stem cells that genetically match the donor without having to resort to cloning. These matched stem cells could be used to make replacement cells and tissues for patients that would not be rejected by the immune system. Until now, the only way to get matching stem cells for an individual would be to create embryos that were clones of that person and extract their stem cells, but the prospect of doing that in humans has been ethically contentious as well.

Progress In Iraq

That brings us to the third issue, the war in Iraq. The war was, without question, the single biggest issue on the minds of voters in the 2006 election. But now, new data and anecdotal evidence indicate that things may be getting better in Iraq. In fact, the New York Times reported today that many Iraqis are actually feeling safer than they were earlier this year in that war-torn country.

This news may jolt the presidential election as well, although critics of the war will note several problems. First, violence is still way too high in Iraq, and 2007 has been the deadliest year ever for American troops. Second, the reduction only brings violence down to the levels before the surge but doesn't move things forward. Third, there is still little or no political progress to report in Iraq, which was the purpose of the surge. And fourth, there's no guarantee the violence will not resume once the surge ends next year.

Obama Leading In Iowa

Fourth, in presidential politics, a new poll conducted by ABC News and the Washington Post has found that Barack Obama is now leading the pack in Iowa. As paradigm shifts go, this one may not be as big as the others, but it does quickly change the perspective of Obama's chances in the presidential race and suddenly makes him look like a real contender again.

The problem, of course, for Obama is that polls change often and if his campaign hypes this poll and falls in a subsequent poll it may create the appearance that he's lost momentum. The poll suggests Obama may do well in the caucus because caucus goers can change their preferences if their top candidate fails to meet a viability threshhold. That means anything can happen after the bottom tier candidates are eliminated from the contest. But the poll could pose new challenges for Obama because it could create the impression that he is the new frontrunner in the state, thus subjecting him to many of the attacks previously launched at Hillary Clinton.

New Orleans Becoming White

And finally, there was one last news story in local politics that changes the way we may see a major American city. The city council of New Orleans is about to become majority white for the first time in two decades. I saw the same thing happen in Washington, D.C. a few years ago, and it started to change the image of the city from a "chocolate city" to a more diverse city.

The same change may be underway in New Orleans, which Mayor Ray Nagin once famously said during Hurricane Katrina, would remain a "chocolate" city. But longtime black residents of this majority-black city may be concerned about the forced gentrification that has taken place since Katrina. After Katrina, a lot of outside observers were questioning the whole idea of rebuilding a major American city below sea level. Now that the community is becoming more white, it will be interesting to see if critics still complain about rebuilding the low-lying crescent city.

That's a lot of change to deal with in just one day. But when paradigms shift, we are forced to question our view of the way things are, or the way we thought they would be.

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