The Cognitive Basis of Science

by Edited by Peter Carruthers , Stephen Stich , Michael Siegal

• ISBN13: 9780521812290
• ISBN10: 0521812291
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-06-10
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

The Cognitive Basis of Science concerns the question 'What makes science possible?' Specifically, what features of the human mind and of human culture and cognitive development permit and facilitate the conduct of science? The essays in this volume address these questions, which are inherently interdisciplinary, requiring co-operation between philosophers, psychologists, and others in the social and cognitive sciences. They concern the cognitive, social, and motivational underpinnings of scientific reasoning in children and lay persons as well as in professional scientists. The editors' introduction lays out the background to the debates, and the volume includes a consolidated bibliography that will be a valuable reference resource for all those interested in this area. The volume will be of great importance to all researchers and students interested in the philosophy or psychology of scientific reasoning, as well as those, more generally, who are interested in the nature of the human mind.

Table of Contents

List of contributors	ix
Preface	xi
Introduction: what makes science possible?	1	(22)
Peter Carruthers
Stephen Stich
Michael Siegal
Part one Science and innateness
Human evolution and the cognitive basis of science	23	(18)
Steven Mithen
Modular and cultural factors in biological understanding: an experimental approach to the cognitive basis of science	41	(32)
Scott Atran
The roots of scientific reasoning: infancy, modularity and the art of tracking	73	(26)
Peter Carruthers
Part two Science and cognition
Science without grammar: scientific reasoning in severe agrammatic aphasia	99	(18)
Rosemary Varley
Causal maps and Bayes nets: a cognitive and computational account of theory-formation	117	(16)
Alison Gopnik
Clark Glymour
The cognitive basis of model-based reasoning in science	133	(21)
Nancy J. Nersessian
Understanding the role of cognition in science: the Science as Category framework	154	(17)
Kevin N. Dunbar
Theorizing is important, and collateral information constrains how well it is done	171	(22)
Barbara Koslowski
Stephanie Thompson
The influence of prior belief on scientific thinking	193	(18)
Jonathan St B. T. Evans
Thinking about causality: pragmatic, social and scientific rationality	211	(24)
Denis Hilton
Part three Science and motivation
The passionate scientist: emotion in scientific cognition	235	(16)
Paul Thagard
Emotions and epistemic evaluations	251	(12)
Christopher Hookway
Social psychology and the theory of science	263	(22)
Philip Kitcher
Part four Science and the social
Scientific cognition as distributed cognition	285	(15)
Ronald Giere
The science of childhood	300	(16)
Michael Siegal
What do children learn from testimony?	316	(19)
Paul L. Harris
The baby in the lab-coat: why child development is not an adequate model for understanding the development of science	335	(28)
Luc Faucher
Ron Mallon
Daniel Nazer
Shaun Nichols
Aaron Ruby
Stephen Stich
Jonathan Weinberg
References	363	(33)
Author index	396	(9)
Subject index	405