In his book Kuhn refers to the term "normal science" and defines it as " research firmly based upon one or more past scientific achievements, achievements that some particular scientific community acknowledges for a time as supplying the foundation for its further practice." (Kuhn, p.10). Essentially it is suggesting that "Normal Science" comprises theories, facts, or data that are created in the present that are based mainly on theories, facts, or data from past experience. An example was the fact that science teachers, books, and curriculums focus on past findings and just teaches those as apposed to allowing students, assistants, or fellow scientists to form totally new theories and data on their own using completely new ideas. Another example was that the old concepts of light was formed in the past and has been pretty much accepted but in the present day and age it is not as compatible as it was before. Normal scientific research concentrates on the past to determine the future. One of the major problems with scientists is they only solve problems they know have solutions. As illustrated in the book this is like puzzle solving. They will attempt only puzzles that they know include all the pieces. This causes resistance in finding new sciences and phenomenon. Scientists focus solely on things that have already been discovered and try to make them better and more accurate instead of focusingon newer forms of methodologies and theories. This idea is further discussed with the ideas of revolution. The next subject matter that Kuhn's deals with is the paradigm. Kuhn's use of the word throughout the book clearly makesit significant to his studies. " In the absence of a competent body of rules, what restricts the scientist to a particular normal-scientific tradition? What can phrase 'direct inspection of paradigms' mean?" (Kuhn, pp.44). What this means is that scientists tend to group particular problems with others because t...
