Postmodernism, through its insistence on relativism, encourages out of the box thinking. Postmodernism is basically a sceptical school of though owing much to the philosophy of Nietzsche. One of its foremost contributions is to free us from the straitjacket assumtions which we mistake to be foundational truths. By being self-reflexive, postmodernism begins by questioning its own basic premises. This kind of scrutiny, if used in judicious doses, will help us from falling into unsubstantiated presumptions. It is a healthy antidote to dogmatic thinking and helpful in every field of inquiry, from medicine to rocket science.

Thank you Nazir

It is not a matter of either/or. Research paradigms (aka knowledge claims, philosophy of science, or worldviews) are basic sets of assumptions and beliefs that guide action. Based on what philosophy of science they hold and, especially, the purpose at hand, researchers make rhetorical statements about the nature of reality (ontology), what counts as knowledge (epistemology), what role values play (axiology), and the process (or language) of research (methodology). Research paradigms afford comprehensive, sometimes complex, and possibly conflicting conceptual understandings of phenomena such as how people interact, how organizations operate, and how societies work. By focusing attention on different aspects of a topic and elucidating the framework within which to conduct analysis, the "lenses" of research paradigms let audiences grasp the ideas that underpin the work. Research paradigms also limit the scope of a study and inform audiences of the boundaries that have been set for a study. Needless to say, the choice of a research paradigm must in any particular instance always be justified.

Sooo, Neitzche is not strictly speaking or loosely speaking associated with PostModernism. In fact, his critiques of the analytic German, French, and Anglophone philosophic schools apply even more forcibly to the Postmodernists than the Enlightenment and Idealist schools. We're really talking about the Frankfurt School when we say Postmodernism. So, Gramchee, Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse, Lukaus, Fromm, Neuman, Grossman, Benjamin, So in the inter-war years, 1930's-40s. Maybe F.W. Neitzche broke some windows that the Postmodernists slunk into the academy through, be he is not a precursor or an ancestor. The Frankfurt School formulated this interdisciplinary school of thought and after WWII it exploded in the academy. So..now, toss in: Foucault, Derrida Derridian Deconstructionists, Philosophies of Identity, Social Political Philosophy, 2nd and 3rd wave Feminist theory. Postmodernism is derived from the Idealist tradition ESPECIALLY from Hegel, with Freudian Idealism, some Kant, and Weil. These idealist systems were synthesized with the Marxist social theory which deployed Marx's emphasis on power structures as the operational force of social change to reaffirm and advance a primarily Hegelian philosophic system boosted by Marx's insights into class conflict, racial conflict, ethnic conflict, and religious conflict ads the catalyst through which radical historiography could be constructed. Thus, the school adopted political and social philosophies structured around group identity and daw divisions based on identity as the battleground where what had been viewed as class struggle would soon be overwritten in terms of race, ethnicity, national origin, and language which would take the symbolic place of class struggle. If you add in some Lecanain thought with Saussure and Chomskian lingusitics, and the Subaltern Studies movement, Spivak et all.. and Butler, Babba, Edward Said, and the Postcolonialists that is more or less Postmodernism.

Now the issue of science as it relates to the application of its systematic approach is its radical relativist claims, its infinite regression of social constructed-ness of language, power, monetary systems, consciousness, gender identity, race. So what was once thought of as objective fact and empirical observation, disproving hypotheses as a manner of deploying the scientific method to arrive at axiomatic or theoretic conclusions which describe the natural world's operation, or phenomena occurring within it, is decentered and cannot be seen as valid or even likely. Rather, every observation arrived at by scientific methodology is a manifestation of the irreducible power structures produced by society to reify systems of oppression and asymmetrical access to material goods. The system of logic and moving from premise to conclusion through a process designed to determine soundness, validity, and truth became the manifestation of logo-phallocentrism. Some postmodernists hold this just means a higher level of scepticism to be applied to these processes, but, more recently the call has been to categorically reject the conclusions of logical systems as designed to further narratives and power structures reliant on logo-phallocentrism. Along with this come the social theories of human perfectability through social conditioning, state-run social and communal education, altruism through systematic modelling and correction of motivations, incentives, behaviours, through social engineering and centralizing civic control through bureaucracies composed of experts to regulate behaviour and produce the desired social outcomes through predictive analytic modelling.

Postmodernism really ends up in paralysis with regard to ethics, the status of reality, perception, experience, consciousness, language, Identity, etc. as all these terms get deconstructed infinitely--leaving only a radically subjective and decentred Self in unconfirmed relation to phenomenal objects which are as real or unreal as you like, but which can not be confirmed to exist or have any definitive characteristics or traits that endure analysis all the way down. However, when everything is equally constructed relative to each perceiving subject, then everything is permitted. Every interpretation is equally valid, though some may prove less useful in navigating a now quite liminal "reality" we both construct and are constructed by--continuously.

Both of them heavily rely on science however they take different directions. Please check Postmodernism and science and technology

IH Grant - The Routledge Companion to Postmodernism, London, 2001