“In the development of any science, the first received paradigm is usually felt to account quite successfully for most of the observations and experiments easily accessible to that science’s practitioners. Further development, therefore, ordinarily calls for the construction of elaborate equipment, the development of an esoteric vocabulary and skills, and a refinement of concepts that increasingly lessens their resemblance to their usual common-sense prototypes. That professionalization leads, on the one hand, to an immense restriction of the scientist’s vision and to a considerable resistance to paradigm change. The science has become increasingly rigid. On the other hand, within those areas to which the paradigm directs the attention of the group, normal science leads to a detail of information and to a precision of the observation-theory match that could be achieved in no other way.”

—  Thomas Kuhn , book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

Source: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), VI. Anomaly and the Emergence of Scientific Discoveries, p. 64 (2012 ed.)

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Thomas Kuhn 27
American historian, physicist and philosopher 1922–1996

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