FOR RELEASE: April 14, 1997
Contact: Susan Lang
Office: (607) 255-3613
Internet: [email protected]
Compuserve: Larry Bernard 72650,565
http://www.news.cornell.edu
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Ordinary people are much more adept at scientific reasoning
than most psychological literature gives them credit for, argues a Cornell
University expert in cognitive development in a new book.
"Most of the psychological literature that examines nonscientists' ability
to reason scientifically largely ignores several principles that are
crucial to scientific inquiry and that nonscientists, in fact, typically
use," said Barbara Koslowski, associate professor of human development at
Cornell and the author of the new book, Theory and Evidence: The
Development of Scientific Reasoning (MIT Press, 1996, $40).
"Because of this, the existing literature treats as flawed reasoning that
is, in fact, scientifically legitimate. As a result, most of the
psychological literature provides a picture of children's and adults'
ability to engage in scientific reasoning that is at best incomplete and at
worst genuinely distorted," she said.
In her new book, Koslowski criticizes numerous classic studies that show
that, although people seemed to behave nonscientifically, they did so
precisely because they were relying on sound principles of scientific
inquiry that are either not typically studied or are, mistakenly, treated
as flawed. Summarizing recent studies, she argues for a different
characterization of the ability of nonscientists to engage in scientific
reasoning, problem-solving and reasoning about causation.
The 360-page book, intended for scholars and students of cognitive
development, examines the beliefs people have about the type of evidence
that counts in scientific reasoning and how those beliefs change with age.
Koslowski also looks at the strategies people use in scientific inquiry,
specifically, hypothesis testing and hypothesis revision when people deal
with evidence that disconfirms a given explanation.
"In many situations, solving a problem or engaging in scientific reasoning
amounts either to formulating or revising a causal explanation and, to do
this, one must evaluate various types of evidence and/or decide which types
to seek out," Koslowski explained. "What are the processes by which
children and adults solve problems and the processes by which they reason
about causal explanations? In this book, I argue that nonscientists reason
in a scientifically legitimate way that has not yet been generally
recognized by scholars in this field."
"This book will become a classic on scientific reasoning, problem solving
and causal understanding. It challenges the model that dominates
psychological work on these topics," said Rochel Gelman, professor of
psychology at the University of California at Los Angeles.
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EDITORS: For a review copy, call MIT Press at (800) 356-0343.
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