In this brief opening chapter we briskly review some of the recent debates within philosophy and psychology which set the stage for the present collection of essays. We then introduce the essays themselves, stressing the inter-linking themes and cross-connections between them.

Introduction

The central position of science in our contemporary world needs no emphasis. Without science (broadly construed, to include all forms of technical innovation) we would still be roaming the savannahs of Africa like our Homo habilis ancestors, digging up tubers and scavenging scraps of meat. And without science (construed narrowly, as involving the application of an experimental method) we would have seen none of the advances in knowledge, technology and accumulation of wealth which have transformed the world and most of its people in just the last four centuries or so. Science now touches every aspect of our lives, from cradle (indeed, sometimes from conception) to grave. Given the manifest importance of science, the search for a scientific understanding of scientific thought and activity itself should need no further motivating. But in fact, the attempt to explain scientific cognition is not only extremely hard, but raises a whole host of fascinating and puzzling questions about the nature, development and operations of the human mind, and its interactions with culture.

This book is about the question: what makes science possible? Specifically, what features of the human mind, of human cognitive development and of human social arrangements permit and facilitate the conduct of science?

Alison Gopnik and her collaborators have recently proposed a novel account of the relationship between scientific cognition and cognitive development in childhood. According to this view, the processes underlying cognitive development in infants and children and the processes underlying scientific cognition are identical. We argue that Gopnik's bold hypothesis is untenable because it, along with much of cognitive science, neglects the many important ways in which human minds are designed to operate within a social environment. This leads to a neglect of norms and the processes of social transmission which have an important effect on scientific cognition and cognition more generally.

Introduction

In two recent books and a number of articles, Alison Gopnik and her collaborators have proposed a bold and intriguing hypothesis about the relationship between scientific cognition and cognitive development in early childhood. In this chapter we will argue that Gopnik's bold hypothesis is untenable. More specifically, we will argue that even if Gopnik and her collaborators are right about cognitive development in early childhood they are wrong about science. The minds of normal adults and of older children are more complex than the minds of young children, as Gopnik portrays them, and some of the mechanisms that play no role in Gopnik's account of cognitive development in early childhood play an essential role in scientific cognition.

This volume is the culmination of the fourth project undertaken by Sheffield University's Hang Seng Centre for Cognitive Studies. (The first project resulted in Theories of Theories of Mind (1996), edited by Peter Carruthers and Peter K. Smith; the second resulted in Language and Thought (1998), edited by Peter Carruthers and Jill Boucher; and the third produced Evolution and the Human Mind (2000), edited by Peter Carruthers and Andrew Chamberlain; all three volumes were published by Cambridge University Press.) For the first time, however, the present project also involved co-operation with the Evolution and Higher Cognition Research Group at Rutgers University, led by Stephen Stich. Four inter-disciplinary workshops were held in Sheffield over the period 1998–2000, and two conferences took place – one at Rutgers in November 1999, and one at Sheffield in June 2000. This collaboration has enabled us to assemble a wider and more international field of contributors than would otherwise have been possible.

The intention behind the project was to bring together a select group of philosophers, psychologists and others in the cognitive sciences to address such questions as the following: What is it about human cognition which either enables us, or fits us, to do science? Do scientific abilities have some sort of distinctive innate basis? Or are scientific abilities socially constructed out of general-learning mechanisms? How do different elements of our cognition fit together to underpin scientific reasoning?