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
To be accepted as a paradigm, a theory must seem better than its competitors, but it need not, and in fact never does, explain all the facts with which it can be confronted.Thomas S. Kuhn
Scientists are men of varying tastes, and the tastes of the scientific community have changed as time has gone by.Thomas S. Kuhn
Scientific development depends in part on a process of non-incremental or revolutionary change. Some revolutions are large, like those associated with the names of Copernicus, Newton, or Darwin, but most are much smaller, like the discovery of oxygen or the planet Uranus.Thomas S. Kuhn
Just because the consensus of a recognized observational-theoretical group has settled on a particular paradigm, that does not mean the paradigm will remain the consensus indefinitely.Thomas S. Kuhn
Science does not develop by the accumulation of individual discoveries and inventions.Thomas S. Kuhn
A paradigm is essential to scientific perception and understanding.Thomas S. Kuhn
When scientists must choose between competing theories, two men fully committed to the same list of criteria for choice may nevertheless reach different conclusions.Thomas S. Kuhn
Introductions to science have rarely begun by presenting a definition of science, and particularly not one of the sort that identifies a first principle or a fixed set of criteria and procedures.Thomas S. Kuhn
Aristotelian science was not the same as Newtonian science; they were different sorts of enterprise pursued with different techniques, and leading to different results.Thomas S. Kuhn