Which of the following idea paved the way for a post-positivist paradigm?

The correct answer is Evidence-based reality that can be empirically verified.

Postpositivism or postempiricism is a metatheoretical stance that critiques and amends positivism and has impacted theories and practices across philosophy, social sciences, and various models of scientific inquiry.

Key Points

Post-positivist paradigm:

• Postpositivists consider both quantitative and qualitative methods to be valid approaches.
• Robert Dubin describes the basic components of a postpositivist theory as being composed of basic "units" or ideas and topics of interest, "laws of interactions" among the units, and a description of the "boundaries" for the theory. 
• A postpositivist theory also includes "empirical indicators" to connect the theory to observable phenomena, and hypotheses that are testable using the scientific method.
• Postpositivism rejects the positivist approach that a researcher can be an independent observer of the social world.
• Postpositivists argue that the ideas, and even the particular identity, of a researcher influence what they observe and therefore impact what they conclude.

Hence the correct answer is Evidence-based reality that can be empirically verified.