Thomas S. Kuhn

normal science assumption community world

“Normal science, the activity in which most scientists inevitably spend almost all their time, is predicated on the assumption that the scientific community knows what the world is like”

― Thomas S. Kuhn (1922-1996)

answer depend question ask

“The answers you get depend on the questions you ask.”

― Thomas S. Kuhn (1922-1996)

truth emerge error confusion

“Truth emerges more readily from error than from confusion.”

― Thomas S. Kuhn (1922-1996)

gravity occult particle matter

“Gravity, interpreted as an innate attraction between every pair of particles of matter, was an occult quality in the same sense as the scholastics' "tendency to fall" had been”

― Thomas S. Kuhn (1922-1996)

Newtor lawmotion experiment reinterpret observation

“Newton's three laws of motion are less a product of novel experiments than of the attempt to reinterpret well-known observations in terms of motions and interactions of primary neutral corpuscles”

― Thomas S. Kuhn (1922-1996)

competition paradigm battle resolve proof

“The competition between paradigms is not the sort of battle that can be resolved by proofs.”

― Thomas S. Kuhn (1922-1996)

breakthrough break-with old thinking

"All significant breakthroughs are break -“withs” old ways of thinking."

― Thomas S. Kuhn (1922-1996)

magisterial objectivity science conditioned history prejudice

"Far from being magisterial in its objectivity, science was conditioned by history, society, and the prejudices of scientists."

― Thomas S. Kuhn (1922-1996)

see world term theory

"We see the world in terms of our theories."

― Thomas S. Kuhn (1922-1996)

normal science aim novelty fact theory

"Normal science does not aim at novelties of fact or theory and, when successful, finds none."

― Thomas S. Kuhn (1922-1996)

important idea science strange first

"Every important idea in science sounds strange at first."

― Thomas S. Kuhn (1922-1996)

individual paradigm young new field rules

"Individuals who break through by inventing a new paradigm are almost always either very young men or very new to the field whose paradigm they change. These are the men who, being little committed by prior practice to the traditional rules of normal science, are particularly likely to see that those rules no longer define a playable game and conceive another set that can replace them."

― Thomas S. Kuhn (1922-1996)