动机对高一学生创造性的科学问题提出能力的影响

选取了360名高一学生,采用直接和间接激发内外动机的方式,通过两个研究考察了内外动机和不同水平的外部动机对中学生创造性的科学问题提出能力的影响,结果发现:(1)直接激发条件下,内部动机能够促进创造性的科学问题提出能力,尤其表现在流畅性以及独创性维度上;(2)直接激发条件下,外部动机能够抑制创造性的科学问题提出能力,尤其表现在独创性维度上;(3)评价情境不同引起的不同的动机水平对于创造性的科学问题提出能力的影响是不同的,期待正性评价不影响创造性的科学问题提出能力,但避免负性评价对创造性的科学问题提出能力有着显著的抑制作用.     

After Lakatos

The work of the philosopher of science Imre Lakatos has been highly influential upon scholars of science and religion, especially persons who want to demonstrate how theological inquiry may meet the intellectual standards of science. I first argue against Lakatos' position, showing how it fails to meet its own ambitions of providing clear and public criteria for assessing scientific theories. I then argue that the same weaknesses will manifest themselves in the work of his followers, using Nancey Murphy's early work as an example. I conclude by affirming Murphy's recent shift towards Alasdair MacIntyre's theory of rationality.     

Expert and “novice” problem solving strategies in chess: Sixty years of citing de Groot (1946)

In a famous study of expert problem solving, de Groot (1946 de Groot, A. D. 1946. Het denken van den schaker, Amsterdam: Noord Hollandsche.  [Google Scholar]/1978 de Groot, A. D. 1965. Thought and choice in chess, The Hague: Mouton Publishers.  [Google Scholar]) examined how chess players found the best move. He reported that there was little difference in the way that the best players (Grand Masters) and very good players (Candidate Masters) searched the board. Although this result has been regularly cited in studies of expertise, it is frequently misquoted. It is often claimed that de Groot found no difference in the way that experts and novices investigate a problem. Comparison of expert and novice chess players on de Groot's problem shows that there are clear differences in their search patterns. We discuss the troublesome theoretical and practical consequences of incorrectly reporting de Groot's findings.     

Effects of perspective and belief on analytic reasoning in a scientific reasoning task

The purpose of these studies was to test the hypothesis that changing perspectives from one's own to another's promotes the engagement of analytic processing and, in turn, reduces the impact of beliefs. In two experiments participants evaluated research vignettes containing belief-consistent and belief-inconsistent conclusions, and indicated whether the data supported a correlation between two variables. Consistent with our hypothesis, the tendency to endorse correlations consistent with prior belief was reduced when participants evaluated the data from the researcher's perspective relative to their own. We also administered the Actively Open Minded Thinking (AOT) scale (Stanovich & West, 2007, 2008), which did not predict belief effects on our task. We did however observe that the AOT was reliably associated with different response strategies: high AOT scorers were more inclined to choose ambiguous response options, such as “no conclusion is warranted”, whereas low scorers evinced a preference for more determinate options (e.g., there is no relationship between the two variables). We interpret our findings in the context of dual process theories of reasoning and from a Bayesian perspective.     

Recurrent transient underdetermination and the glass half full

Kyle Stanford’s arguments against scientific realism are assessed, with a focus on the underdetermination of theory by evidence. I argue that discussions of underdetermination have neglected a possible symmetry which may ameliorate the situation.

The Emergence and Evolution of the Expression “Conflict of Interests” in <Emphasis Type="Italic">Science</Emphasis>: A Historical Overview, 1880–2006

The tendency is strong to take the notion of "conflict of interests" for granted as if it had an invariant meaning and an ethical content independent of the historical context. It is doubtful however, from an historical and sociological point of view, that many of the cases now considered as instances of "conflicts of interests" would also have been conceived and perceived as such in, say, the 1930s. The idea of a "conflict of interests" presupposes that there are indeed interests in conflict. Conversely, as long as there is a consensus among the different groups involved, they will not conceive and even less denounce a given practice as being an instance of a "conflict of interests". In this article we will show that the content of the discussions over conflicts of interests has changed over time in close relation with the transformations of the research system. In other words: there are social conditions for the emergence of "conflicts of interests". The changing meaning of the notion is assessed by analyzing the presence of the expression "conflicts of interests" in the magazine Science over the past century. Three different meanings emerge and their content has evolved in close link with the changing structure of the relations between the scientific community first with the State and then with industry. It moved from a situation external to the scientific community to a debate going on inside the scientific community generated by the growing relations between university and industries.     

Biomedicine: an ontological dissection

Though ubiquitous across the medical social sciences literature, the term “biomedicine” as an analytical concept remains remarkably slippery. It is argued here that this imprecision is due in part to the fact that biomedicine is comprised of three interrelated ontological spheres, each of which frames biomedicine as a distinct subject of investigation. This suggests that, depending upon one’s ontological commitment, the meaning of biomedicine will shift. From an empirical perspective, biomedicine takes on the appearance of a scientific enterprise and is defined as a derivative category of Western science more generally. From an interpretive perspective, biomedicine represents a symbolic-cultural expression whose adherence to the principles of scientific objectivity conceals an ideological agenda. From a conceptual perspective, biomedicine represents an expression of social power that reflects structures of power and privilege within capitalist society. No one perspective exists in isolation and so the image of biomedicine from any one presents an incomplete understanding. It is the mutually-conditioning interrelations between these ontological spheres that account for biomedicine’s ongoing development. Thus, the ontological dissection of biomedicine that follows, with particular emphasis on the period of its formal crystallization in the latter nineteenth and early twentieth century, is intended to deepen our understanding of biomedicine as an analytical concept across the medical social sciences literature.

A proposed universal model of problem solving for design,science and cognate fields

A modestly generic, innovative, problem solving process with roots in the study of design and scientific research problem solving is presented and motivated. It is argued to be the shared core process of all problem solving. At its heart is a recognition of five foci or nodes of change vital to the process (changes in problem and solution formulation, method, constraints, and partial solution proposals) together with a bootstrap marked by the formation of higher order knowledge about problem solving in the domain in tandem with the solving of specific problems, the essential feature of all learned improvement. None of these elements is entirely original, but the way they are made explicit and developed (rather than folded into fewer, more abstract, boxes) is argued to provide fresh understanding of the organisation and power of the process to deal with complex practical problems.     

Paul Feyerabend und Thomas Kuhn

The paper discusses some aspects of the relationship between Feyerabend and Kuhn. First, some biographical remarks concerning their connections are made. Second, four characteristics of Feyerabend and Kuhn's concept of incommensurability are discussed. Third, Feyerabend's general criticism of Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions is reconstructed. Forth and more specifically, Feyerabend's criticism of Kuhn's evaluation of normal science is critically investigated. Finally, Feyerabend's re-evaluation of Kuhn's philosophy towards the end of his life is presented. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.