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Of skyhooks and the coevolution of scientific disciplines

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 1999

Donald R. Franceschetti
Affiliation:
Department of Physics and Institute for Intelligent Systems, The University of Memphis, Memphis TN 38152 [email protected]

Abstract

The history of the natural sciences repeatedly shows that the unification of a higher level theory with a lower level theory by reduction does not eliminate the need for the higher level theory nor preclude its further development, leading to changes in the understanding of the lower level. The radical neuron doctrine proposes that the future science of psychology or linguistics will derive principally from the evolution of understanding at the neural level and not from current theories based on the observation of behavior. It is far more likely that the two bodies of theory will coevolve in semiautonomous fashion.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
© 1999 Cambridge University Press

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