الصفحة 1
الصفحة 1
Model-Based Reasoning in Science, Technology, and Medicine
The volume is based on the papers that were presented at the international conference Model-Based Reasoning in Science and Medicine (MBR’06 China), held at Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, P.R. China in July 2006. The presentations given at the conference explored how scientific thinking uses models and explanatory reasoning to produce creative changes in theories and concepts. Some addressed the problem of model-based reasoning in technology, and stressed the issue of technological innovation and medical reasoning. The various contributions of the book are written by interdisciplinary researchers who are active in the area of creative reasoning in science and technology: the most recent results and achievements about the topics above are illustrated in detail in the papers.
Creative Model Construction in Scientists and Students : The Role of Imagery, Analogy, and Mental Simulation
How do scientists use analogies and other processes to break away from old theories and generate new ones? This book documents such methods through the analysis of video tapes of scientifically trained experts thinking aloud while working on unfamiliar problems. Some aspects of creative scientific thinking are difficult to explain, such as the power of analogies, the use of physical intuition, and the enigmatic ability to learn from thought experiments. The book examines the hypothesis that these processes are based on imagistic mental simulation as an underlying mechanism. This allows the analysis of insight ("Aha!") episodes of creative theory formation.
African Cultural Astronomy : Current Archaeoastronomy and Ethnoastronomy research in Africa
Astronomy is the science of studying the sky using telescopes and light collectors such as photographic plates or CCD detectors. However, people have always studied the sky and continue to study the sky without the aid of instruments this is the realm of cultural astronomy. This is the first scholarly collection of articles focused on the cultural astronomy of Africans. It weaves together astronomy, anthropology, and Africa. The volume includes African myths and legends about the sky, alignments to celestial bodies found at archaeological sites and at places of worship, rock art with celestial imagery, and scientific thinking revealed in local astronomy traditions including ethnomathematics and the creation of calendars. Authors include astronomers Kim Malville, Johnson Urama, and Thebe Medupe; archaeologist Felix Chami, and geographer Michael Bonine, and many new authors.
