Philosophers Of Science Have Repeatedly Demonstrated That

It Is, I Think, Particularly In Periods Of Acknowledged Crisis That Scientists Have Turned To Philosophical Analysis As A Device For Unlocking The Riddles Of Their Field. Scientists Have Not Generally Needed Or Wanted To Be Philosophers.

Normal Science Does Not Aim At Novelties Of Fact Or Theory And, When Successful, Finds None.

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.

What Chemists Took From Dalton Was Not New Experimental Laws But A New Way Of Practicing Chemistry (he Himself Called It The 'new System Of Chemical Philosophy'), And This Proved So Rapidly Fruitful That Only A Few Of The Older Chemists In France And Britain Were Able To Resist It.

Each Paradigm Will Be Shown To Satisfy More Or Less The Criteria That It Dictates For Itself And To Fall Short Of A Few Of Those Dictated By Its Opponent.