The Feasibility of Folk Science

If folk science means individuals having well worked out mechanistic theories of the workings of the world, then it is not feasible. Laypeople’s explanatory understandings are remarkably coarse, full of gaps, and often full of inconsistencies. Even worse, most people overestimate their own understan...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Cognitive science 2010-07, Vol.34 (5), p.826-862
Main Author: Keil, Frank C.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Causal reasoning
Children & youth
Cognition & reasoning
Cognitive development
Concepts
Expertise
Explanations
Feasibility
Folk science
Folklore
Formal science
Intuitive theories
Science
Scientists
Studies
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Summary:If folk science means individuals having well worked out mechanistic theories of the workings of the world, then it is not feasible. Laypeople’s explanatory understandings are remarkably coarse, full of gaps, and often full of inconsistencies. Even worse, most people overestimate 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 laypeople 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.
ISSN:0364-0213
1551-6709
DOI:10.1111/j.1551-6709.2010.01108.x