Wittenberg, Jason with John D. Sterman, "Competition and Succession in the Dynamics of Scientific Revolution", 1993
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What is the relative importance of internal versus contextual forces in the birth and death of scientific theories? Elaborating on the analysis of a model of multiple paradigm competition and scientific development already developed by Wittenberg and Sterman, we find that situational factors present when a paradigm is launched largely determine a paradigm’s probability of rising to dominance. Stronger paradigms that survive the emergence phase live longer than their weaker counterparts, but this too is contingent upon factors present during the emergence period.