Model-Based and Manipulative Abduction in Science

What I call theoretical abduction (sentential and model-based)certainly illustrates much of what is important in abductive reasoning, especially the objective of selecting and creating a set of hypotheses that are able to dispense good (preferred) explanations of data, but fails to account for many cases of explanation occurring in science or in everyday reasoning when the exploitation of the environment is crucial. The concept of manipulative abduction is devoted to capture the role of action in many interesting situations: action provides otherwise unavailable information that enables the agent to solve problems by starting and performing a suitable abductive process of generation or selection of hypotheses. Many external things, usually inert from the epistemological point of view, can be transformed into what I callepistemic mediators, which are illustrated in the last part of the paper, together with an analysis of the related notions of ``perceptual and inceptual rehearsal' and of ``external representation'.     

Embodied Anomaly Resolution in Molecular Genetics: A Case Study of RNAi

Scientific anomalies are observations and facts that contradict current scientific theories and they are instrumental in scientific theory change. Philosophers of science have approached scientific theory change from different perspectives as Darden (Theory change in science: Strategies from Mendelian genetics, 1991) observes: Lakatos (In: Lakatos, Musgrave (eds) Criticism and the growth of knowledge, 1970) approaches it as a progressive “research programmes” consisting of incremental improvements (“monster barring” in Lakatos, Proofs and refutations: The logic of mathematical discovery, 1976), Kuhn (The structure of scientific revolutions, 1996) observes that changes in “paradigms” are instigated by a crisis from some anomaly, and Hanson (In: Feigl, Maxwell (eds) Current issues in the philosophy of science, 1961) proposes that discovery does not begin with hypothesis but with some “problematic phenomena requiring explanation”. Even though anomalies are important in all of these approaches to scientific theory change, there have been only few investigations into the specific role anomalies play in scientific theory change. Furthermore, much of these approaches focus on the theories themselves and not on how the scientists and their experiments bring about scientific change (Gooding, Experiment and the making of meaning: Human agency in scientific observation and experiment, 1990). To address these issues, this paper approaches scientific anomaly resolution from a meaning construction point of view. Conceptual integration theory (Fauconnier and Turner, Cogn Sci 22:133–187, 1996; The way we think: Conceptual blending and mind’s hidden complexities, 2002) from cognitive linguistics describes how one constructs meaning from various stimuli, such as text and diagrams, through conceptual integration or blending. The conceptual integration networks that describe the conceptual integration process characterize cognition that occurs unconsciously during meaning construction. These same networks are used to describe some of the cognition while resolving an anomaly in molecular genetics called RNA interference (RNAi) in a case study. The RNAi case study is a cognitive-historical reconstruction (Nersessian, In: Giere (ed) Cognitive models of science, 1992) that reconstructs how the RNAi anomaly was resolved. This reconstruction traces four relevant molecular genetics publications in describing the cognition necessary in accounting for how RNAi was resolved through strategies (Darden 1991), abductive reasoning (Peirce, In: Hartshorne, Weiss (eds) Collected papers, 1958), and experimental reasoning (Gooding 1990). The results of the case study show that experiments play a crucial role in formulating an explanation of the RNAi anomaly and the integration networks describe the experiments’ role. Furthermore, these results suggest that RNAi anomaly resolution is embodied. It is embodied in a sense that cognition described in the cognitive-historical reconstruction is experientially based.

Covariance/Invariance: A Cognitive Heuristic in Einstein's Relativity Theory Formation

Relativity Theory by Albert Einstein has been so far littleconsidered by cognitive scientists, notwithstanding its undisputedscientific and philosophical moment. Unfortunately, we don't have adiary or notebook as cognitively useful as Faraday's. But physicshistorians and philosophers have done a great job that is relevant bothfor the study of the scientist's reasoning and the philosophy ofscience. I will try here to highlight the fertility of a `triangulation'using cognitive psychology, history of science and philosophy of sciencein starting answering a clearly very complex question:why did Einstein discover Relativity Theory? Here we arenot much concerned with the unending question of precisely whatEinstein discovered, that still remains unanswered, for we have noconsensus over the exact nature of the theory's foundations(Norton 1993). We are mainly interested in starting to answer the`how question', and especially the following sub-question: what(presumably) were his goals and strategies in hissearch? I will base my argument on fundamental publications ofEinstein, aiming at pointing out a theory-specific heuristic, settingboth a goal and a strategy: covariance/invariance.The result has significance in theory formation in science, especiallyin concept and model building. It also raises other questions that gobeyond the aim of this paper: why was he so confident in suchheuristic? Why didn't many other scientists use it? Where did he keep ? such a heuristic? Do we have any other examples ofsimilar heuristic search in other scientific problemsolving?     

心智科学时代的“赫尔墨斯”：弗朗西斯科·瓦雷拉

弗朗西斯科·瓦雷拉是智利著名生物学家、神经科学家、心智科学家和哲学家,也是自创生、具身心智、生成认知以及神经现象学等观念或理论的倡导者和提出者。本文就掌握的史料从瓦雷拉的生平、学术贡献以及评价和影响等三个方面再现了其作为心智科学时代的“赫尔墨斯”形象。     

美国社会中的科学、宗教与法律:"斯科普斯案"剖析

20世纪20年代美国的反进化论立法运动,把法律、科学与宗教密切地联系起来。本文从“巴特勒法案”产生的社会文化背景入手,对“斯科普斯案”涉及的科学、宗教和法律问题及其相互关系进行了分析,并在此基础上揭示了美国社会中法律、科学与宗教的独特性,为深入理解三者之间的复杂互动提供了一个内容丰富的案例分析。     

科学技术与可持续发展:21世纪科技发展的重大战略问题

科学技术与可持续发展是一个重大的科学技术发展战略问题,科学技术的发展将改变运行的传统轨道,开始进入可持续发展.科学技术的发展不仅运行在物理世界,还能够运行在生态世界.这涉及到科学技术发展将由原来的单向轨道开始转向物理世界与生态世界的双向轨道.     

从科学宣传到科学研究--中国科学社科学救国方略的转变

辛亥革命后，在国家建设潮流影响下，“科学救国”成为时代思潮。创立学会团结同志是发展科学的重要手段之一，中国科学社循此在美国诞生。由于当时中国科学的落后现状及其社员自身能力所限，中国科学社最初选择了科学宣传作为科学救国的良方。然而只有进行实实在在的科学研究，中国科学才能真正发展。1918年中国科学社迁回国后，将社务重心从科学宣传向科学研究转变，不仅在舆论上鼓吹科学研究，社员们也身体力行，具体实践，并创建生物研究所，使之成为近代中国科研机构的典范。这一新文化运动期间最为特出的“科学之音”，对近代中国科学的发展产生了深远的影响。     

医学与其它学科交叉融合的文献计量学分析——以国内五所综合性大学为例

医学与其它学科之间的交叉融合对综合性大学的发展具有重要意义。分析国内5所综合性大学在1998—2007年期间发表研究论文的情况可以看出,生物医学领域的研究论文数量在过去10多年里有了大幅度的增长,而合作论文占全部论文的比例超过了55%。这些合作论文虽然目前还以同行合作为主,但跨学科合作论文从2003年开始进入了快速增长的阶段,2007年的跨学科合作论文总数已达到2003年的5倍。以北京大学的跨学科合作论文为例进行具体分析可以看出,跨学科合作应该根据不同学科的特点和优势,找到交叉融合的切入点。     

科技治理中NGO的制度化咨询——以美国国家纳米科技计划为例

在当今科技政策制定中,非政府组织(NGO)具有越来越重要的作用。本文以美国国家纳米科技计划发展为例,分析了总统科技咨询委员会与国家研究理事会等非政府组织在政策制定、实施以及绩效评估等制度化过程中的作用,分析了非政府组织对纳米科技的社会形塑,以及在科技政治化等过程中所产生的影响。