Emergent Novelty

The man who is striving to solve a problem defined by existing knowledge and technique is not, however, just looking around.  He knows what he wants to achieve, and he designs his instruments and directs his thoughts accordingly.  Unanticipated novelty, the new discovery, can emerge only to the extent that his anticipations about nature and his instruments prove wrong.
—     Thomas S. Kuhn
From his book: “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions“
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Resistant Expectation

In science, as in the playing card experiment, novelty emerges only with difficulty, manifested by resistance, against a background provided by expectation.
—    Thomas S. Kuhn
From his book:  “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions“
[Note: “the playing card experiment” is a psychological test of individuals to evaluate subject’s perceptions via the use of a few modified cards in a standard deck of four suits. i.e. a red, six of spades.  Most individuals insisted the colors were black or shadowed with black (they were not).  This happened even when the “exposure” to the card was longer than a two seconds.  The experiment hi-lights we have a “natural” proclivity to “see” what we expect to see.   —    KMAB]
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