Editing Normal science (section)

==Criticism==
Kuhn's normal science is characterized by upheaval over cycles of puzzle-solving and scientific revolution, as opposed to cumulative improvement. In Kuhn's [[historicism]], moving from one paradigm to the next completely changes the universe of scientific assumptions. [[Imre Lakatos]] has accused Kuhn of falling back on [[irrationalism]] to explain scientific progress. Lakatos relates Kuhnian scientific change to a mystical or [[religious conversion]] ungoverned by reason.<ref>I. Lakatos, ''Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes'' (1970) p. 93</ref>

With the aim of presenting scientific revolutions as rational progress, Lakatos provided an alternative framework of scientific inquiry in his paper ''Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes.'' His model of the research programme preserves cumulative progress in science where Kuhn's model of successive irreconcilable paradigms in normal science does not. Lakatos' basic unit of analysis is not a singular theory or paradigm, but rather the entire [[research programme]] that contains the relevant series of testable theories.<ref>Lakatos, p. 132</ref> Each theory within a research programme has the same common assumptions and is supposed by a belt of more modest auxiliary [[hypotheses]] that serve to explain away potential threats to the theory's core assumptions.<ref>Lakatos, p. 133</ref> Lakatos evaluates problem shifts, changes to auxiliary hypotheses, by their ability to produce new facts, better predictions, or additional explanations. Lakatos' conception of a scientific revolution involves the replacement of degenerative research programmes by progressive research programmes. [[Rival]] programmes persist as minority views.<ref>Lakatos, p. 163</ref>

Lakatos is also concerned that Kuhn's position may result in the controversial position of [[relativism]], for Kuhn accepts multiple conceptions of the world under different paradigms.<ref>Lakatos, p. 178</ref> Although the developmental process he describes in science is characterized by an increasingly detailed and refined understanding of nature, Kuhn does not conceive of science as a process of evolution towards any goal or [[telos]].<ref name=":0">Kuhn, 170-171</ref> He has noted his own sparing use of the word ''truth'' in his writing.<ref name=":0" /> 

An additional consequence of Kuhn's relavitism, which poses a problem for the [[philosophy of science]], is his blurred demarcation between science and [[non-science]]. Unlike Karl Popper's [[deductive]] method of falsification, under Kuhn, scientific discoveries that do not fit the established paradigm do not immediately falsify the paradigm. They are treated as anomalies within the paradigm that warrant further research, until a scientific revolution [[refutes]] the entire paradigm.