My interest isn't in evolution per se. But the history of science and how science advances. Not exactly free from human folly and ego. Have you read:
Sure; it was one of many texts required in grad school. I am very familiar with the theory, and agree with virtually all of it.
The theory boils down to: change comes slowly in science, and students pick up the new ideas quicker then elderly professors. When a certain critical mass is reached, the old paradigm is overturned and the new begins.
What is the new paradigm in evolution that this should be relevant?
PE, as I noted in a previous post, is an old idea, going back to Darwin.
Genetics was discovered and didn't change the overall theory, though it added some really nice details.
Dating has continued to improve, and there are more and more fossils.
So where is the sea-change in evolution that Kuhn would see as a paradigm shift?
So where is the sea-change in evolution that Kuhn would see as a paradigm shift? If we accept PE and reject neo-Darwinism than scientists can start thinking overtly of a new mechanism that can cause speciation other than the neo-Darwinian mechanism. Until this occurs there will be no paradigm shift.
I think the answer may be found in genetics. I'm a design engineer not a geneticist. But I did read somewhere that most of the genetic code is not used or redundant or not fully understood.
We designers sometimes "design in" redundant and what the untrained eye would call "useless stuff". But the designer may have a reason for this "useless stuff". He may envisage a day in the future when he can utilize this extra stuff and have a design modification on the cheap when the time warrants.
Now Gould has speculated about rapid evolution required for his PE. Speculating that "some kind of severe stress" caused the organisms to change relatively (in geological time) rapidly. Maybe these "useless" genes hold a clue.