The Historian Of Science May

As In Political Revolutions, So In Paradigm Choice-there Is No Standard Higher Than The Assent Of The Relevant Community... This Issue Of Paradigm Choice Can Never Be Unequivocally Settled By Logic And Experiment Alone.

To Turn Karl [popper]'s View On Its Head, It Is Precisely The Abandonment Of Critical Discourse That Marks The Transition Of Science. Once A Field Has Made The Transition, Critical Discourse Recurs Only At Moments Of Crisis When The Bases Of The Field Are Again In Jeopardy. Only When They Must Choose Between Competing Theories Do Scientists Behave Like Philosophers.

Literally As Well As Metaphorically, The Man Accustomed To Inverting Lenses Has Undergone A Revolutionary Transformation Of Vision.

The Resolution Of Revolutions Is Selection By Conflict Within The Scientific Community Of The Fittest Way To Practice Future Science. The Net Result Of A Sequence Of Such Revolutionary Selections, Separated By Periods Of Normal Research, Is The Wonderfully Adapted Set Of Instruments We Call Modern Scientific Knowledge.

Its Assimilation Requires The Reconstruction Of Prior Theory And Re-evaluation Of Prior Fact, An Intrinsically Revolutionary Process That Is Seldom Completed A Single Man And Never Overnight