In A War A Totalitarian State Has

Given Any Rule, However "fundamental" Or "necessary" For Science, There Are Always Circumstances When It Is Advisable Not Only To Ignore The Rule, But To Adopt Its Opposite. For Example, There Are Circumstances When It Is Advisable To Introduce, Elaborate And Defend Ad Hoc Hypotheses, Or Hypotheses Which Contradict Well-established And Generally Accepted Experimental Results, Or Hypotheses Whose Content Is Smaller Than The Content Of The Existing And Empirically Adequate Alternative, Or Self-inconsistent Hypotheses, And So On.

Today Science Prevails Not Because Of Its Comparative Merits, But Because The Show Has Been Rigged In Its Favour... It Reigns Supreme Because Some Past Successes Have Led To Institutional Measures (education; Role Of Experts; Role Of Power Groups Such As The Ama) That Prevent A Comeback Of The Rivals.

A Free Society Is A Society In Which All Traditions Have Equal Rights And Equal Access To The Centers Of Power. A Tradition Receives These Rights Not Because The Importance The Cash Value, As It Were) It Has For Outsiders But Because It Gives Meaning To The Lives Of Those Who Participate In It.

The Idea Of A Method That Contains Firm, Unchanging, And Absolutely Binding Principles For Conducting The Business Of Science Meets Considerable Difficulty When Confronted With The Results Of Historical Research. We Find, Then, That There Is Not A Single Rule, However Plausible, And However Firmly Grounded In Epistemology, That Is Not Violated At Some Time Or Another.

The Material Which A Scientist Actually Has At His Disposal, His Laws, His Experimental Results, His Mathematical Techniques, His Epistemological Prejudices, His Attitude Towards The Absurd Consequences Of The Theories Which He Accepts, Is Indeterminate In Many Ways, Ambiguous, And Never Fully Separated From The Historical Background . This Material Is Always Contaminated By Principles Which He Does Not Know And Which, If Known, Would Be Extremely Hard To Test.