The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

by Thomas S. Kuhn

If you look at any research journal, he wrote, you will find three types of problems addressed: (1) determination of significant facts, (2) matching of facts with theory, and (3) articulation of theory. To expand slightly:

History also suggests, however, some reasons for the difficulties encountered on that road. In the absence of a paradigm or some candidate for paradigm, all of the facts that could possibly pertain to the development of a given science are likely to seem equally relevant. As a result, early fact-gathering is a far more nearly random activity than the one that subsequent scientific development makes familiar.