Finally, let us put it thus: positivists, Popper and Kuhn in different ways sought to show how science is unique. Whereas according to positivists, the uniqueness of science among our various types of cognitive activities like commonsense, art, religion, etc. consists in the systematic verifiability of scientific claims, according to Popper, systematic falsifiability of scientific claims, and it is consensus, according to Kuhn. All the three sought to draw a line of demarcation between science and non-science, and by doing so, presented science as a type of knowledge-seeking activity which is not only unique in itself but also as exemplifying an ideal which the other modes of cognizing the world must emulate. Feyerabend repudiates the possibility of drawing a line of demarcation between science and non-science. This does not imply that according to him there is no difference between science and, say, religion or art. He only maintains that such a line of demarcation keeps shifting with the result, the line is no absolute and logical but relative (to an age) and historical. By construing the line of demarcation between science and non-science in totally contingent terms, Feyerabend seeks to strip science of its uniqueness and in the same breadth nullifies its alleged idealhood. According to Feyerabend, the idea that science is unique is based on the myth that it is equipped with a method constituted by certain norms scrupulously adhered to in all ages. Once this myth stands exploded, science can no longer occupy the citadel it has been placed upon by contemporary culture.

The basic thrust of this whole discussion is to foreground the various issues which philosophers, historians and sociologists of science are grappling within their attempt to understand the methods of science as a cognitive enterprise. It may be mentioned in this connection that social scientists usually work with some conception of science and its method. Since such a conception very much informs their work, it is necessary that they should free themselves from received notions and naïve ideas about science presented by textbooks and deeply entrenched in popular psyche. All that this discussion has sought to achieve is to hammer the point that the pattern of scientific thinking is too complex to be captured by a catalogue of thumb rules pompously presented as the principles of scientific method.