Paradigm Shift

By Sally Fama Cochrane

28'' x 22''. Summer 2009

Our faith in the old paradigm of alchemy, as represented by the transmutation circle, is compared with our enormous (visual pun!) faith in the new paradigm of the lab rat. As Robert Sapolsky said, "If a rat is a good model for your emotional life, you're in big trouble." This is not to deny the usefulness of the lab rat model, but just to ask why we sometimes think our current paradigm is perfect when we know an old one wasn't.