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[[Karl Popper]] (1902-1994)[[CiteRef::Popper (1963)]][[CiteRef::Popper (1972)]] advocated a falsificationist view of theory assessment, and, like Pierce, stressed the importance of criticism in the production of knowledge. For Popper, members of a scientific community attempt to demonstrate the inadequacies of one another's theories by finding observational shortcomings or conceptual flaws. This is, necessarily, a community activity in which the community acts as an epistemic agent either accepting or rejecting a theory based on the outcome of such attempts. The outcome is that only the most empirically adequate and conceptually sound theories survive such community scrutiny. Since this process resembles that of biological evolution by natural selection, it is called evolutionary epistemology.[[CiteRef::Longino (2016a)]]
The role of social communities as epistemic agents was also stressed by [[Thomas Kuhn]] (1922-1996) in his ''The Structure of Scientific Revolutions''.[[CiteRef::Kuhn (1962a)]] Kuhn maintained that the work of a scientific community was united by adherence to a ''paradigm'' of shared beliefs, practices, and exemplars. The ''paradigm'' guided puzzle solving research to explain more phenomena in its terms. In the course of such research, anomalies may arise. Anomalies were phenomena that resisted explanation in terms of the theories, methods, and epistemic values that constituted the paradigm. Persistent anomalies could sometimes lead to a scientific revolution, in which the paradigm was displaced by a rival framework. [[CiteRef::Longino (2016a)]][[CiteRef::Bird (2013)]] For individual scientists, Kuhn stressed the non-rational aspects of paradigm choice, comparing it to a religious conversion experience or a gestalt shift. [[CiteRef::Kuhn (1962a)]] However, he later came to stress the role of shared epistemic values in paradigm choice by communities. [[CiteRef::Kuhn (1974)]] [[Imre Lakatos]] (1922-1974) and [[Larry Laudan]] (1941-) instead spoke of communities of scientists pursuing research programs consisting of groups of related theories with individual scientists choosing to adopt or abandon such programs. [[CiteRef::Losee (2001)]].
Interest in communities as epistemic agents was also spurred by the increasing prevalence of large scientific research groups during the second half of the twentieth century. During World War II, the Manhattan Project involved large numbers of theoretical and experimental physicists working at several sites to produce the atomic bomb for the United States. [[CiteRef::Longino (2016)]]
Sociologists of science placed a greater emphasis on the role of non-rational social factors, such as political and professional power structures, in the production of scientific knowledge than did Kuhn. [[CiteRef::Barnes (1977)]][[CiteRef::Shapin (1982)]][[CiteRef::Colins (1983)]]
