I am reading this right now. A lot of awesome insight in the book. I just can't help but get the feeling that 90% of it is going over my head without having read Kuhn, Popper, etc.
That is indeed a problem. He's responding to a century's worth of epistemological thought, and that reply makes only limited sense without knowing what he's replying to.
I see it as a kind of conversation:
Popper: Scientists invent hypotheses, then try to falsify them.
Kuhn: Turns out that's not really what scientists do most of the time, especially the most important ones. The inspiration comes out of nowhere.
Feyerabend: And that's a good thing, because they'd miss out on pretty much everything. You can never know for sure what's going to be a revolution and what's just crankery.
I find that Feyerabend is a little too broad in that last assertion. But it's a really important observation nonetheless, especially when a lot of scientists (and more importantly, science-adjacent types like most HN readers) are stuck back on Popper.
I see it as a kind of conversation: Popper: Scientists invent hypotheses, then try to falsify them.
Kuhn: Turns out that's not really what scientists do most of the time, especially the most important ones. The inspiration comes out of nowhere.
Feyerabend: And that's a good thing, because they'd miss out on pretty much everything. You can never know for sure what's going to be a revolution and what's just crankery.
I find that Feyerabend is a little too broad in that last assertion. But it's a really important observation nonetheless, especially when a lot of scientists (and more importantly, science-adjacent types like most HN readers) are stuck back on Popper.