Science in mind

Abstract

The Cognitive Basis of Scienceby Peter Carruthers, Stephen Stich and Michael Siegal. Cambridge University Press, 2002. £47.50 (hbk) ISBN 0521812291 / £17.95 (pbk) ISBN 0521011779 (422 pages)Many popular conceptions of science are focused on a small set of stories and anecdotes about famous scientists and novel experiments. The study of science within cognitive science, whilst concerned, in part, with exceptional individuals and crucial experiments, has a much broader range. Research in the cognitive science of science involves multiple methodologies and investigators from several different disciplines. It asks numerous questions about science. Some, such as how do scientists reason, are directly about scientists. Others, such as how is scientific knowledge acquisition supported by culture, concern social institutions and the public perception and use of scientific research.The Cognitive Basis of Science is a book about the cognitive science of science. It consists of 18 essays, including an editorial introduction. The central question of the collection is ‘What is there about mind and culture that makes science possible?’ A partial list of contributors includes (in addition to the editors) Kevin Dunbar, Ronald Giere, Clark Glymour, Alison Gopnik, Paul Harris, Philip Kitcher, Steven Mithen, Nancy Nersessian and Paul Thagard.Despite differences of focus and, more than occasionally, of theoretic commitment, each author seems to share the following two convictions. The first is that the cognitive capacity for science evolved and developed under the selective pressure of Mother Nature. The capacity has, in part, some sort of innate or fixed basis. The second is that although the capacity for science is fixed or innate in some respects, it is plastic in others. What is plastic is the connection between cognition and knowledge acquisition and the cultural contingencies in which that connection is embedded. If and only if from initial expression in an individual or society, scientific cognition and knowledge is actively nurtured by social conventions and cultural norms does science develop as a mature enterprise or activity.The dynamic interaction of those two convictions – the first about fixedness and the second about plasticity and being culturally embedded – is highlighted in several essays. Mithen's chapter is an archaeologist's effort to explain some of the details of the evolution of the human capacity for science. Mithen examines the role that the externalization of memory (the ability to record, store and transmit information) on cave walls and in artifacts may have played in the accumulation of knowledge necessary, eventually, for scientific research and activity. Giere argues that a major factor in the development of science was the invention of elaborate means both for storing information externally and for examining the world in a manner unrestricted by the senses. Seven coauthors, including one of the editors (Stich), contribute a chapter on the role of cultural norms in the development of science. One key norm, they argue, is the rule that personal evidence should take a backseat to expert authority. ‘Most people’, they write, ‘who know that genes are made of DNA and that DNA molecules have a double helical structure haven't a clue about the evidence for these claims’ (p. 352). Harris examines the role that adult testimony plays in the conceptual development of children. Adult testimony is not just a complement to personal observation but – depending on the type of testimony – dramatically extends the human mind so that it can take advantage of knowledge gained over time by culture.One of the most fascinating methodologies within cognitive science for studying science consists of the observational study of scientists at work in laboratories. Dunbar in his chapter reports the results of his use of this in vivo method. ‘The cognitive life of a lab’ (p. 156), as Dunbar describes it, reveals that patterns of scientific reasoning depend considerably on the social or laboratory context in which they are embedded. ‘Even basic inductive processes are frequently completed by groups’ (p. 160). Human beings, including children (a point promoted by Gopnik and Glymour in their chapter), acquire information about the world and experiment. However to understand the role of cognition in science one must understand how these activities are brought together in the laboratories of molecular biologists, chemists and other scientists.The collection contains several probing and well-written papers that advance the cognitive science of science, and provide stimulating and rewarding reading for anyone interested in cognitive science.