Fred L. Bookstein (1993) Geometry as Cognition in the Natural Sciences
. Psycoloquy: 4(65) Scientific Cognition (2)
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Psycoloquy 4(65): Geometry as Cognition in the Natural Sciences
GEOMETRY AS COGNITION IN THE NATURAL SCIENCES
Commentary on Giere on Science-Cognition
Fred L. Bookstein
Center for Human Growth and Development
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109
(313) 764-2443
fred@brainmap.med.umich.edu
Abstract
The cognitive models of science surveyed in the Giere
(1992) volume appear to ignore apperception of "geometrical" data
-- locations and displacements in the real space of gauges or
photographs. Disregard of this channel entails a serious
underweighting of abductive reasoning and of the force of
quantitative anomalies or surprisingly accurate predictions in
accounts of the rhetoric of the natural sciences.
Keywords
Cognitive science, philosophy of science, cognitive
models, artificial intelligence, computer science, cognitve
neuroscience.
References
- Clifford, W. K. (1885). The Common Sense of the Exact Sciences. New York: Appleton.
- Giere, R.N. (1993). Precis of: Cognitive Models of Science. PSYCOLOQUY 4(56) scientific-cognition.1.giere.
- Giere, R.N. (1992) Cognitive Models of Science. Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, volume 15. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
- Kuhn, T. S. (1961). The Function of Measurement in Modern Physical Science. pp. 31-63. In: Woolf, H. (ed.) Quantification. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill.
- Miller, A. (1986). The Obedience Experiments. New York: Praeger.
- Platt, J. (1964). Strong Inference. Science 146:347-353.
- Stigler, S. M. (1986). The History of Statistics: the Measurement of Uncertainty Before 1900. Harvard.
- Wigner, E. P. (1960). The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences. Communications in Pure and Applied Mathematics 13(1). Reprinted in Symmetries and Reflections. Indiana University Press, 1967, pp. 222-237.