Host: The Japanese Society of Toxicology
Name : The 50th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society of Toxicology
Date : June 19, 2023 - June 21, 2023
A paradigm shift is a revolutionary or dramatic change in a paradigm, i.e., a perception, idea, or social value system that were taken for granted in each given era or field. Paradigm is a concept originally proposed by Thomas Samuel Kuhn, a philosopher of science, in his main work "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" (1962), but it has been expanded from its original meaning and generalized for use. Exceptional problems that cannot be explained by the old paradigm gradually accumulate, and as a result, the paradigm is plunged into crisis. Eventually, from among the ideas considered heretical, some emerge that are effective in solving problems, and then a new paradigm appears. This is how science has progressed.
Noteworthy advances in toxicology are, in my opinion, voraciously absorbing the revolutionary progress that can be described as a paradigm shift in life science. To be precise, there shifts are from “Qualitative” to “Quantitative” study, from “Correlation” to “Causation” study, as well as from “Inductive inference of general rules” to “Deductive inference of the entire system based on genomes”. Another example is “Regulatory Science,” which contributes to adjusting to a desirable form for human and societal benefit. Toxicology, even more, also proactively contributes to the introduction and utilization of artificial intelligence (AI) technology by using deep learning. Furthermore, it seems that the realization of "crossing the barrier between functional science and morphology" by introducing molecular biology has been reached relatively early. How advanced and intriguing! —I know of no other discipline with such impressive features, other than toxicology.
I sincerely hope that toxicology will continue to be an academic field that welcomes, rather than fears, the emergence of new paradigms.
