Toward a Cognitive Psychology of Science: Recent Research and Its
Implications
In the article written by Ryan Tweney, he is contemplating the idea of whether
there is a cognitive significance to scientific thinking. Many different
studies are mentioned to try and answer this contemplation. One study on
discovering the complexity of the universe found that subjects did the best if
they confirmed evidence supporting their hypothesis early, and disconfirmed evidence
later; this explains the persistence of many scientists. Another study found
that the subjects could be divided into “experimenters” or “theorists.” Yet
another study showed that cognitive science and history influence each other.
This finding should not at all be surprising. To answer his initial
contemplation of whether scientific thinking is cognitively significant, Tweney
says yes and no. On one hand, cognitive science is a special domain in which
many fields intersect, but everyday thinking is also core to scientific
thinking. We can now hopefully expect more opportunities for improving science
education, with psychology holding its role of supporting science.
In my child development class this semester, we learned a lot about the
psychologist Jean Piaget and his work with children. Interestingly enough,
Tweney mentions Piaget for his ideas of the “child as scientist.” The theories
of Piaget actually fit right in with Tweney’s ideas of cognitive thought and
science. Piaget was a student of biology, psychology and philosophy and he used
those fields to construct his idea of “symbolic thought,” which is the
coordination of thought and action by children as they construct knowledge from
the world and people. This actually falls under the ideas of genetic
epistemology, which is the experimental science of the acquisition of
knowledge.
A result from one of the studies mentioned struck my attention. It was found
that it was better for scientists to ignore disconfirming evidence early in
their tasks, and disconfirm their hypothesis later only if they had a lot of
confirmatory evidence. HOW is this strategy better??!!
If a scientist is on the wrong track with an experiment, they should DEFINITELY
pay attention to disconfirming evidence early on in an experiment. Perseverance
in the face of evidence to the contrary is usually not a good idea.