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The scientific enterprise as a whole does from time to time prove useful, open up new territory, display order, and test long-accepted belief. Nevertheless, the individual engaged on a normal research problem is almost never doing any one of these things.

— Thomas Kuhn The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962)

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More quotes by Thomas Kuhn

Men whose research is based on shared paradigms are committed to the same rules and standards for scientific practice.

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962)

Normal science often suppresses fundamental novelties because they are necessarily subversive of its basic commitments.

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962)

By now it may be clear that the position I'm developing is a sort of post-Darwinian Kantianism.

The Road Since Structure (2002)

In science, as in the playing card experiment, novelty emerges only with difficulty, manifested by resistance, against a background provided by expectation.

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962)

Only when they must choose between competing theories do scientists behave like philosophers.

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