Editing Normal science (section)

==The breakdown of consensus==
The normal scientist presumes that all values, techniques, and theories falling within the expectations of the prevailing paradigm are accurate.<ref>Kuhn, p. 97</ref> Anomalies represent challenges to be puzzled out and solved ''within'' the prevailing paradigm. Only if an anomaly or series of anomalies resists successful deciphering long enough and for enough members of the scientific community will the paradigm itself gradually come under challenge during what Kuhn deems a crisis of normal science.<ref>Kuhn, p. 145</ref> If the paradigm is unsalvageable, it will be subjected to a [[paradigm shift]].<ref>Kuhn, p. 52-78</ref> 

Kuhn lays out the progression of normal science that culminates in scientific discovery at the time of a paradigm shift: first, one must become aware of an anomaly in nature that the prevailing paradigm cannot explain. Then, one must conduct an extended exploration of this anomaly. The crisis only ends when one discards the old paradigm and successfully maps the original anomaly onto a new paradigm. The scientific community embraces a new set of expectations and theories that govern the work of normal science.<ref>Kuhn, p. 53</ref> Kuhn calls such discoveries [[scientific revolutions]].<ref>Kuhn, p. 90</ref> Successive paradigms replace each other and are necessarily incompatible with each other.<ref>Kuhn, p. 92</ref>

In this way however, according to Kuhn, normal science possesses a built-in mechanism that ensures the relaxation of the restrictions that previously bound [[research]], whenever the paradigm from which they derive ceases to function effectively.<ref>Kuhn, p. 181</ref> Kuhn's framework restricts the permissibility of paradigm falsification to moments of scientific discovery.