Styles Of Scientific Reasoning Research Articles

Heterotopia as a Reconstruction of the History of Ideas

This paper proposes an analysis of the work The order of things by Michel Foucault, based on the notion of heterotopia, to demonstrate that the author develops there an original procedure of re-reading the history of ideas, which consists of the rearrangement of elements canonized by historiography, creating new relations between them, as well as in the insertion of unusual or heterodox elements. We then show how Ian Hacking reappropriates this heterotopic procedure in The emergence of probability and how it influences the heart of the author’s philosophical project, whose unique reading of archaeology brings it back to epistemology, either through the idea of “immature science” or through his notion of “styles of scientific reasoning.” Understanding the conditions for the formation of our ideas denaturalizes our current ways of thinking, opening new possibilities for thought and action. The relevance and potential that this heterotopic procedure has for contemporary epistemology are thus evident.

Development and Validation of a Test of In-service Science Teachers’ Epistemic Knowledge in Electricity and Magnetism Using Rasch Analysis

In physics education, assessments address various forms of scientific knowledge. Most of the existing test instruments emphasise the assessment of content knowledge. These tests fail to measure the epistemic aspects of science. Thus, assessing epistemic knowledge is a theme that demands investigation. This study applies Rasch analysis to help validate an epistemic knowledge test in electricity and magnetism. Each of the initial 30 items represents distinct features of scientific reasoning. The construct dimensions are derived from Kind and Osborne’s framework of Styles of Scientific Reasoning. Based on expert validation, a final 20 items were selected. The test was administered to 156 graduating in-service natural science teachers. Reliability and separation indices, person-item mapping, and principal component analysis using standardised residuals are reported. No meaningful secondary dimension was found in the test data. Invariant properties showed that the test had internal coherence. The Wright Map showed the difficulty of the test to the test takers. The overall fit statistics were within the acceptable range. Along the continuum of item difficulty, there were some notable gaps, where future test items judged to be that level of difficulty could be included. We acknowledge that there may be other reasons for these gaps.

How Political Cultures Produce Different Antibiotic Policies in Agriculture: A Historical Comparative Case Study between the United Kingdom and Sweden.

The purpose of this article is to provide an understanding of how different countries formulate and regulate antibiotic use in animals raised for human consumption. A comparative case study was undertaken, analysing historical documents from the 1950s to the 1990s from the UK, the first country to produce a scientific report on the public health risks of agricultural antibiotic use; and Sweden, the first country to produce legislation on the growth promotor use of antibiotics in food animals. Sheila Jasanoff's concepts of ‘co‐production’ and ‘political cultures’ have been used to explore how both countries used different styles of scientific reasoning and justification of the risks of agricultural antibiotic use. It will be argued that national dynamics between policy, science and public knowledges co‐produced different risk classifications and patterns of agricultural antibiotic use between both countries. UK's political culture used ‘expert committees’ to remove the issue from public debate and to inform agricultural antibiotic policies. In contrast, the Swedish ‘consensus‐oriented’ political culture made concerns related to agricultural antibiotic use into a cooperative debate that included multiple discourses. Understanding how national policies, science and public knowledges interact with the risks related to agricultural antibiotic use can provide valuable insights in understanding and addressing countries agricultural use of antibiotics.

Styles of Scientific Reasoning: A Cultural Rationale for Science Education?

In this paper, we contend that what to teach about scientific reasoning has been bedeviled by a lack of clarity about the construct. Drawing on the insights emerging from a cognitive history of science, we argue for a conception of scientific reasoning based on six “styles of scientific reasoning.” Each “style” requires its own specific ontological and procedural entities, and invokes its own epistemic values and constructs. Consequently, learning science requires the development of not just content knowledge but, in addition, procedural knowledge, and epistemic knowledge. Previous attempts to develop a coherent account of scientific reasoning have neglected the significance of either procedural knowledge, epistemic knowledge, or both. In contrast, “styles of reasoning” do recognize the need for all three elements of domain-specific knowledge, and the complexity and situated nature of scientific practice. Most importantly, “styles of reasoning” offer science education a means of valorizing the intellectual and cultural contribution that the sciences have made to contemporary thought, an argument that is sorely missing from common rationales for science education. Second, the construct of “styles of reasoning” offers a more coherent conceptual schema for the construct of scientific reasoning—one of the major goals of any education in the sciences.

Styles of scientific reasoning: Adolf Remane (1898-1976) and the German evolutionary synthesis

Adolf Remane is widely considered to have been one of the most influential German zoologists of the 20th Century, yet Ernst Mayr persistently characterized him as an idealistic morphologist, that is, a typologist unable to understand population genetics or indeed Darwinian theory. This stands in sharp contrast to Mayr's praise for Bernhard Rensch as one of the most important German contributors to the Modern Synthesis of evolutionary theory. Remane's style of scientific reasoning is analysed in his writings on microsystematics, ecology, comparative morphology and phylogenetics and found to be highly consistent throughout these varied fields of research, while differing fundamentally from the eminently statistical foundations of both population genetics and natural selection theory that were embraced by Mayr. A comparative analysis of Rensch's understanding of science in general, and biology in particular, shows him to share core values with Remane, both authors rooted in the Mandarin tradition of the German professoriate. Biographical and socio-political factors appear to have influenced Mayr's contrasting perception of Remane and Rensch, one that would influence later biologists and historians of science.

‘Language, Truth and Reason’ 30 years later

This paper traces the origins of the styles project, originally presented as ‘styles of scientific reasoning’. ‘Styles of scientific thinking & doing’ is a better label; the styles can also be called genres, or, ways of finding out. A. C. Crombie’s template of six fundamentally distinct ones was turned into a philosophical tool, but with a tinge of Paul Feyerabend’s anarchism. Ways of finding out are not defined by necessary and sufficient conditions, but can be recognized as distinct within a sweeping, anthropological, vision of the European sciences. The approach is unabashedly whiggish. The emergence of these styles is part of what Reviel Netz calls cognitive history, and is to be understood in an ecological way. How did a species like ours, on an Earth like this, develop a few quite general strategies for finding out about, and altering, its world? At a more analytical level, the project invokes Bernard Williams’ notion of truthfulness to explicate the idea that these styles are ‘self-authenticating’ and without foundations. The paper concludes with open questions. What role (for example) have these few fundamentally distinct genres of inquiry played in the formation of the anomalous Western idea of Nature apart from Man?

Two Styles of Reasoning in Scientific Practices: Experimental and Mathematical Traditions

This article outlines a philosophy of science in practice that focuses on the engineering sciences. A methodological issue is that these practices seem to be divided by two different styles of scientific reasoning, namely, causal-mechanistic and mathematical reasoning. These styles are philosophically characterized by what Kuhn called ‘disciplinary matrices’. Due to distinct metaphysical background pictures and/or distinct ideas of what counts as intelligible, they entail distinct ideas of the character of phenomena and what counts as a scientific explanation. It is argued that the two styles cannot be reduced to each other. At the same time, although they are incompatible, they must not be regarded as competing. Instead, they produce different kinds of epistemic results, which serve different kinds of epistemic functions. Moreover, some scientific breakthroughs essentially result from relating them. This view of complementary styles of scientific reasoning is supported by pluralism about metaphysical background pictures.

Establishment of Mathematical Geology in Russia: Some Brush Strokes in the Portrait of the Founder of Mathematical Geology, Prof. A. B. Vistelius

This paper presents a concise historic overview of the establishment and pathways of development of mathematical geology. Its very existence is largely due to the activity of Russian geologist Prof. Vistelius (1915–1995) who was the first president of the International Association of Mathematical Geology. Presented are important facts of biography of A. B. Vistelius, as well as the history of his scientific investigations. It is elucidated that in the USSR, mathematical geology, like genetics or cybernetics, was hardly accepted by the ideology that dominated at that time from its very appearance in the 40s. Both mathematical geology and its creator could not be squeezed into the tight limits of the Soviet ideology. But the difficulties only benefited his bright individuality and hardened his style of scientific reasoning, leadership, and fight for purity of science. Vistelius believed that mathematical geology would be the paradigm for geoscience in the 21st century. It is ascertained that the scientific ideology of conceptual modeling of geologic processes and objects suggested by Vistelius has totally proved itself. However, its further propagation is impeded by those geologists whose thinking is traditional and whose paradigm is old. This situation must be changed to enter the coming century equipped with economically reliable concepts ensuring sustainable development. It could be unprofitable and even dangerous to ignore the concepts developed by Prof. Vistelius. This paper focuses on the principal ideas of Prof. Vistelius and detailed large-scale program of development of mathematical geology in the foreseeable future. This program is fulfilled in the Institute of Mathematical Geology (IMAG) of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, founded by Prof. Vistelius.

Problem-solving in general practice.

To identify problem solving strategies in general practice. Three styles of scientific reasoning were defined and modelled on the medical environment. These models were tested in a simulated doctor-patient encounter. According to the definitions contained in the models a deductive or hypotheticodeductive strategy could not be discovered. All participants used exclusively the inductive method and, more specifically, the speculative variant. This variant may be best described as a process of iterative pattern recognition. The manifest utilization of the inductive method carries many implications among which are the irretraceability and irreproducibility of the process. The speculative form approaches the conception of art rather than science. This is exactly what most doctors try to tell: medicine is an art. The strategy allows for flexibility and quick response to the patient's needs.

A Philosophical Evaluation of the Chaos Theory "Revolution"

The scientific study of chaotic dynamics, popularly known as chaos theory, has been described by several writers as a revolution in the sense of Kuhn. I provide a definition of chaos theory and offer a brief description of this field of research. I then take up the question of whether or not chaos theory should be described as revolutionary, in light of the fact that no well-developed science of nonlinear dynamics preceded it. In some respects, chaos theory may be fruitfully described as an immature science, and the semantic view of theories helps to bring out some of its important features. Many aspects of this emerging field make it most appropriate to consider it a new style of scientific reasoning, analogous to statistical thinking as interpreted by Ian Hacking.