WHAT,    EXACTLY,    IS    "SHIFTING"

IN    THIS    PARADIGM   ?

Project Phoenix, the SETI  (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute's search for life underway at the Arecibo Observatory.
http://www.seti.org/seticam/Welcome.html 

The Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico is the largest radio telescope on Planet Earth.
http://www.space.com/searchforlife/seti_arecibo_page.html

A paradigm shift, as the termed has been used since the mid-twentieth century, is more than a knowledge explosion, or an accumulation of new data.    The shift has to do with a change in orientation.   Fissures in a worldview spread when information accumulates which cannot be assimilated into it.    When it begins to crumble, new patterns emerge.   

When a paradigm SHIFTS, 

it’s not just the formulas and equations, so to speak, that change.

What shifts are the axioms on which they rest,

the frame of reference within which they make sense. 

Please read on...