In Kuhn’s scheme, normal science consists largely of mopping up operations. Experimentalists carry out modified versions of experiments that have been carried out many times before. Theorists add a brick here, reshape a cornice there, in a wall of theory. It could hardly be otherwise. If all scientists had to begin from the beginning, questioning fundamental assumptions, they would be hard pressed to reach the level of technical sophistication necessary to do useful work. In Benjamin Franklin’s time, the handful of scientists trying to understand electricity could choose their own first
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