Table Of ContentTRANSFORMING NATURE
Ethics, Invention and Discovery
TRANSFORMING NATURE
Ethics, Invention and Discovery
Michael E. Gorman
University 0/ Virginia
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SPRINGER SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, LLC
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gonnan, Michael E., 1952 -
Transfonning nature: ethics, invention and discovery / Michael E.
Gonnan.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4613-7589-0 ISBN 978-1-4615-5657-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4615-5657-2
1. Discoveries in science -- Social aspects. 2. Inventions --Social
aspects. 3. Science --Moral and ethical aspects. I. Title.
QI80.55.D57G67 1998
306.4'5--dc21 97-52148
elP
Copyright © 1998 Springer Science+Business Media New York
Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers, New York in 1998
Softcover reprint ofthe hardcover 1st edition 1998
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system or transmitted in any fonn or by any means, mechanical, photo
copying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written pennission of the
publisher, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC .
Printed on acid-free paper.
To Margaret, Philip, Stuart and Patrick
and Matt, my right hand
CHAPTER 1
DISCOVERY 1
1.1 Kepler 1
1.1.1 Will the Real Discovery Please Stand Up? 7
1.1.2 What Kepler Tells Us About Discovery 10
1.1.3 Why Discover? 13
1.2 Writing as Discovery 14
1.3 Discovery as Invention: Michael Faraday 20
1.3.1 Faraday and the Five Generalizations 26
1.3.2 Faraday as Hero 28
1.3.3 Creating a Computational Model of Faraday's Cognitive Processes 29
1.4 Discovery as Negotiation: The Great Devonian Controversy 31
1.4.1 The Great Devonian Controversy 31
1.4.2 Could a Computer Resolve the Devonian Controversy? 38
1.4.3 Murchison as Hero? 39
1.4.4 Discovery as Negotiation: The Five Generalizations 40
1.5 The Double Helix 43
1.6 The Canals on Mars 45
1.7 Understanding and Teaching Discovery: What Have We Learned? 49
CHAPTER 2
UNDERSTANDING DISCOVERY 51
2.1 The Emergence of A Sociology of Scientific Knowledge 51
2.2 The Scientific Method: Road to Truth or Superstitious Practice? 55
2.2.1 Ideological relativism 58
2.3 Cognitive Psychology of Science 62
2.3.1 Can Science Be Used to Study Science? 63
viii
2.3.2 Does Cognitive Psychology Presume Rationalism and Realism? 63
2.3.3 Computational Simulations of Scientific Discovery 65
2.3.4 If Machines can Discover, Do we Need a Sociology of Scientific
Discovery? 67
2.3.5 In Vitro and In Vivo Studies of Scientific Thinking 70
2.3.6 Abstract Tasks 71
2.3.7 Tasks That Have the Look and Feel of Scientific Problems 82
2.3.8 Actual Scientific Problems 86
2.3.9 20th Century Biologists and 19th Century Geologists Compared 100
2.4 Metaphors and Analogies in Scientific Thinking 101
2.4.1 What Makes a Good Analogy 102
2.4.2 Analogical Reasoning in Science 104
2.5 Cognitive Psychology of Science in Perspective 106
CHAPTER 3
CREATING A NEW WORLD 112
3.1 The Etheric Force and Cold Fusion: When Discovery and Invention
Don't Mix 113
3.2 Reverse Salients and Simultaneous Inventions 117
3.2.1 Who Invented the Telephone? 119
3.2.2 Multiple Telegraphy as Reverse Salient in the 1870s 120
3.3 A Cognitive Framework for Understanding the Invention Process 121
3.4 Competition over the Harmonic Multiple Telegraph 125
3.4.1 Elisha Gray's Multiple Harmonic Telegraph 127
3.4.2 Alexander Graham Bell's Path to a Multiple Harmonic Telegraph 131
3.5 The Error That Led to the First Telephone 136
3.6 Gray's Caveat for a Speaking Telegraph 139
3.7 Bell's Ear Mental Model 143
3.8 Bell's Patent and Gray's Caveat Compared 149
ix
3.9 BeD's Path to the First Transmission of Speech 150
3.9.1 The Liquid Transmitter 154
3.10 Bell and Gray's Liquid Transmitters in Perspective 160
3.11 After the First Transmission of Speech 161
3.12 Cognition, Invention and Discovery: The Five Generalizations 167
3.12.1 The Wright Brothers: A Dual-Space Analysis 169
3.12.2 Cognitive Styles: Flexibility, Visualization and Networks of
Enterprise 170
3.13 What Invention Says to Cognitive Science 175
CHAPTER 4
ETHICS, INVENTION AND DISCOVERY 178
4.1 When Matter Becomes Energy 179
4.2 Virtue and Moral Reasoning 186
4.3 Moral Imagination 190
4.4 Towards a Sustainable Tomorrow 196
4.4.1 Sustainable Technological Growth 197
4.5 The Natural Step 204
4.6 Science, Superstition and Sustainability 210
4.7 Silicone nightmare 211
4.7.1 Development of the First Breast Implant 213
4.7.2 A "New and Improved" Implant? 214
4.7.3 Enter the ethicist 217
4.7.4 Junk Science? 224
4.7.5 Can the legal system act as guardian against pollution? 234
4.8 Design of an Environmentally Intelligent Fabric 237
4.8.1 The Making of an Environmental Manufacturer 238
4.8.2 The DesignTex/Rohner Textil Partnership 240
x
4.8.3 William McDonough's Contribution 242
4.8.4 Employee autonomy within a moral framework 247
4.9 Current solar income 250
4.9.1 A.C. Rich and Sun 251
4.9.2 Solar Electric Light Fund 262
4.10 Generalizations about ethics, invention and discovery 272
CHAPTER 5
TEACHING ETHICS, DISCOVERY AND INVENTION 276
5.1 What Students and Practitioners Need to Learn 276
5.2 Using Abstract Simulations to Teach Scientific Thinking 279
5.2.1 SIMSCI 280
5.2.2 Social and cognitive processes in SIMSCI 283
5.2.3 Using SIMSCI to Explore Evidence Ambiguity 284
5.2.4 Educational Implications of SIMSCI 286
5.2.5 Virtual SIMSCI? 287
5.3 Turning active leaming modules into case-studies 289
5.4 Turning Students into Inventors 290
5.4.1 An Active Learning Module Based on the Telephone 290
5.4.2 A Course on Invention and Design 294
5.4.3 A student group tackles the photophone 295
5.4.4 Turning secondary students into inventors 303
5.4.5 Advice from an Inventor on Working in Groups 306
5.5 Cases that Combine Invention and Ethics 310
5.5.1 Case-studies of creative inventors and discoverers 310
5.5.2 Combining ethics and invention 311
5.6 Ethics case dilemmas 313
5.6.1 DesignTex 313
5.6.2 Rohner Textil 314
xi
5.6.3 American Solar Network 321
5.6.4 Solar Power in the Developing World 324
5.7 Using Active Learning Modules to Teach Environmental
Invention 325
5.7.1 The environmental challenge: An active learning module for
secondary students 326
5.7.2 Evaluation ofthe Course for Gifted Secondary Students 329
5.7.3 Turning students into ethical entrepreneurs 331
5.7.4 An intelligent notebook 336
5.8 Implications for Educational Reform 337
5.9 Implications for managing innovation 339
5.9.1 Generalizations about Managing Innovation 345
5.9.2 Leadership style and innovation 348
5.10 Why do we not act to save the world? 349
5.11 Of Loons, and a Lake 353
BIBLIOGRAPHY 357
INDEX 383
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FIGURE 21 ............................................................................................................ 301
