Is scientific knowledge growing through a process of Darwinian evolution?
In short: How does human understanding expand from simple observations to complex scientific truths? While we often view knowledge as a steady climb, new perspectives suggest it behaves more like biological life, evolving through selection, modification, and even intellectual isolation to create a more accurate map of reality.
The expansion of human understanding can be viewed through two distinct lenses: individual cognitive development and the collective evolution of scientific knowledge. On a personal level, Jean Piaget’s Four-Stage Theory of Cognitive Development suggests that children process information fundamentally differently than adults. This process involves moving through specific stages—sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational—using mechanisms like assimilation and accommodation to build mental schemas. This cognitive growth is further supported by Vygotsky's Theory of Scaffolding. Such development relies on mental schemas to organise information.
On a broader scale, the growth of scientific knowledge follows a different, more complex trajectory. While Thomas Kuhn’s 1962 work, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, highlighted how intellectual communities reach consensus by often isolating themselves from outside ideas, researcher Chris Haufe proposes a different driver. Haufe argues that the development of scientific practice is actually governed by Darwinian evolution, specifically the model of descent with modification.
This evolutionary model suggests that scientific knowledge is unique because it tends to increase in both breadth and depth over time. Just as biological populations are susceptible to natural selection, scientific knowledge appears to be susceptible to modification. This ability to be refined and updated, even across generations of different scientific groups, explains why we can trust the results of modern scientific research. It acknowledges that while scientific thought is historically contingent, its inherent capacity for modification allows it to trend toward an increasingly accurate picture of the phenomena it studies.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: The Growth of Knowledge: Crash Course Psychology #18
- Also: How Knowledge Grows
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