This work follows the tradition of Thomas Kuhn’s famous book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and deals with the evolution of science. Unlike Kuhn’s book, however, this article assumes that the sequence of paradigms is not only the result of the ageing of paradigms, but also very much a conflict between the supporters of an old and a new paradigm, in which academic careers and scientific dominance are at stake: The representatives of the old paradigm try to maintain their dominant position by using evolutionarily stable strategies in the reviewing of publications and to delay or even prevent the advancement of new paradigms, in order to secure their own position in the distribution struggle for future research funds. To clarify under what circumstances and to what extent this succeeds, a computer simulation model is developed, which describes the reviewing process and its consequences for the population dynamics of the representatives of the old and the new paradigm. The depletion of the old paradigm and the tolerance of the reviewers towards foreign paradigmatic approaches prove to be decisive for the simulation results.