It’s easy to recognize why The Structure of Scientific Revolutions annoys a lot of people who earn a living trying to figure out why and how the world works. There’s something a little insulting about the term “normal science,” in the same way it’s insulting to describe a woman’s outfit as “basic.” There’s also a high degree of intellectual hopelessness ingrained within this philosophy—it makes it seem like whatever science is happening at any given time is just a placeholder, and that the main purpose of any minor scientific advance is to wait for its inevitable obsolescence.
