file.newsgroup.med.58830 Maven / Gradle / Ivy
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From: [email protected] (Mark Fulk)
Subject: Re: Science and methodology (was: Homeopathy ... tradition?)
In article [email protected] (Gary Merrill) writes:
>Of course we can't hope (currently at least) to explain how or why
>Kekule had the daydream of snakes in the fire biting their tails.
>Surely it wasn't the *only* daydream he had. What was special about
>*this* one? Could it have had something to do with a perceived
>*analogy* between the geometry of the snakes and problems concerning
>geometry of molecules? Is such analogical reasoning "extra-scientific"?
>Or is it rather at the very heart of science (Perice's notion of abduction,
>the use of models within and across disciplines)? Upon close examination,
>is there a non-rational mystical leap taking place, or is it perhaps
>closer to a formal (though often incomplete) analogy or model?
I feel the need to repeat myself: Kekule's dream is a rather bad example
of much of anything. Read Root-Bernstein's book on the history of the
benzene ring.
--
Mark A. Fulk University of Rochester
Computer Science Department [email protected]