In my view the ‘normal’ scientist, as Kuhn describes him, is a person one ought to be sorry for. (According to Kuhn’s views about the history of science, many great scientists must have been ‘normal’; yet since I do not feel sorry for them, I do not think that Kuhn’s views can be quite right.) The ‘normal’ scientist, in my view, has been taught badly. I believe, and so do many others, that all teaching on the University level (and if possible below) should be training and encouragement in critical thinking. The ‘normal’ scientist, as described by Kuhn, has been badly taught. He has been taught in a dogmatic spirit: he is a victim of indoctrination. He has learned a technique which can be applied without asking for the reason why (especially in quantum mechanics). As a consequence, he has become what may be called an applied scientist, in contradistinction to what I should call a pure scientist.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "In my view the ‘normal’ scientist, as Kuhn describes him, is a person one ought to be sorry for. (According to Kuhn’s views about the history of science, many great scientists must have been ‘normal’; yet since I do not feel sorry for them, I do not think that Kuhn’s views can be quite right.) The ‘normal’ scientist, in my view, has been taught badly. I believe, and so do many others, that all teaching on the University level (and if possible below) should be training and encouragement in critical thinking. The ‘normal’ scientist, as described by Kuhn, has been badly taught. He has been taught in a dogmatic spirit: he is a victim of indoctrination. He has learned a technique which can be applied without asking for the reason why (especially in quantum mechanics). As a consequence, he has become what may be called an applied scientist, in contradistinction to what I should call a pure scientist." in the context of "Karl Popper, "Normal Science and Its Dangers", in Imre Lakatos & Alan Musgrave (eds.), Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge (1970)" to mean that wisdom is timeless.