Normal science, identified and elaborated on by Thomas Samuel Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, is the regular work of scientists theorizing, observing, and experimenting within a settled paradigm or explanatory framework. Regarding science as puzzle-solving, Kuhn explained normal science as slowly accumulating detail in accord with established broad theory, without questioning or challenging the underlying assumptions of that theory.
Kuhn stressed that historically the route to normal science could be a difficult one. Prior to the formation of a shared paradigm or research consensus, would-be scientists were reduced to the accumulation of random fact and unverified observations, in the manner recorded by Pliny the Elder or Francis Bacon, while simultaneously beginning the foundations of their field from scratch through a plethora of competing theories.
Arguably at least the social sciences remain at such a pre-paradigmatic level today.
WorldNews.com | 03 Feb 2021
ABC7 | 03 Feb 2021
Urdu Point | 03 Feb 2021
China.dot.org | 03 Feb 2021