Introduction to the “Paradigm Shifts in Perspective” Series

Excerpt

The history of human knowledge has so uninterruptedly shown that to collateral, or incidental, or accidental events we are indebted for the most numerous and most valuable discoveries, that it has at length become necessary, in any prospective view of improvement, to make not only large, but the largest allowances for inventions that shall arise by chance, and quite out of the range of ordinary expectation.

—Edgar Allan Poe, The Mystery of Marie Rogêt, 1842

These words, voiced by Auguste Dupin, a fictional amateur sleuth, contain an inalienable truth regarding the nature of discovery. In science, the truly major advances, which substantially change the way we think, termed “paradigm shifts” [1], often arise from the most unexpected quarters by individuals not considered to be in the mainstream of investigators associated with a disease or observation. With this issue, Digestive Diseases and Sciences introduces a new series of articles entitled “Paradigm Shifts in Perspective” which is aimed at highlighting scientific findings that have had a major impact on the field of gastroenterology. One of the motivations for creating this series is to increase the appreciation for “small” science, driven mostly by intellectual curiosity informed by a desire to understand disease pathogenesis, the principal wellspring for these advances. We plan to highlight advances that were initially under-appreciated, scorned, or even forgotten, only to resurface or gain acceptance as the “game changers” of gastroenterology. Since it can take decades for the full import of a discovery to manifest, most of the articles highlighted will be from the 1980s at the latest. …