The Feasibility of Folk Science.

Cognitive Science
Frank C Keil

Abstract

If folk science means individuals having well worked out mechanistic theories of the workings of the world, then it is not feasible. Lay people's explanatory understandings are remarkably coarse, full of gaps and often full of inconsistencies. Even worse, most people underestimate their own understandings. Yet, recent views suggest that formal scientists may not be so different. In spite of these limitations, science somehow works and its success offers hope for the feasibility of folk science as well. The success of science arises from the ways in which scientists learn to leverage understandings in other minds and to outsource explanatory work through sophisticated methods of deference and simplification of complex systems. Three studies ask whether analogous processes might be present not only in lay people, but also in young children and thereby form a foundation for supplementing explanatory understandings almost from the start of our first attempts to make sense of the world.

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Citations

Jun 4, 2014·Cognitive Science·Jonathan F Kominsky, Frank C Keil
Apr 30, 2014·The British Journal of Developmental Psychology·Sunae Kim, Paul L Harris
Apr 29, 2015·Cognitive Science·Christopher Vredenburgh, Tamar Kushnir
Feb 19, 2013·Consciousness and Cognition·Ofri Maor, David Leiser
Jun 7, 2014·Frontiers in Human Neuroscience·Sabrina S AliAmir Raz
Jul 31, 2016·Prevention Science : the Official Journal of the Society for Prevention Research·Rainer Bromme, Andreas Beelmann
May 7, 2016·Public Understanding of Science·Friederike HendriksRainer Bromme
Sep 19, 2017·Child Development·Christina Starmans
Jan 19, 2021·Child Development·David M Sobel, Zoe Finiasz
Mar 10, 2021·Child Development·Jae EngleLeslie J Carver
Jun 18, 2021··Bhagya WimalasiriMiriam Sturdee
May 2, 2017··Michael A. DeVitoJeremy Birnholtz
Apr 20, 2018··Stephanie TongKarrie Karahalios

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