Facts, interpretations, and explanations: a review of Evelyn Fox Keller's Making sense of life.
The job of a researcher is to explain the phenomenon that he or she is seeking to understand. To do this requires the accumulation of facts. These facts are then interpreted to arrive at explanations. However, individual researchers often interpret facts in different ways and arrive at disparate explanations. In her book, Making Sense of Life, Evelyn Fox Keller (2002) outlines various approaches used by developmental biologists to understand the animate systems we call life. In this review, I note several parallels between biology and behavior analysis in how facts are discovered, what is an acceptable interpretation of data, and how explanations are arrived at.
Kennedy
Craig H
CH
Department of Special Education, Box 328-Peabody, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee 37203, USA. craig.kennedy@vanderbilt.edu
D001695:Biology / Q000379:methods; D006663:Historiography; D049673:History, 20th Century; D049674:History, 21st Century; D019369:Life; D008433:Mathematics; D010684:Philosophy / Q000266:history*; D012107:Research Design; D014481:United States