Carving joints into nature: reengineering scientific concepts in light of concept-laden evidence.

Reassessing scientific concepts is essential for scientific progress. Bottom-up conceptual reengineering agendas across science accommodate previous evidence but ignore how the collection of previous evidence was affected by the concepts being assessed at the time. Cognitive and philosophical research suggests similarities between conceptual influences on human perception and conceptual influences on scientific evidence. Specifically, scientific concepts warp the similarity and measurement fidelity of phenomena; serve as units of scientific experimentation, theorizing, and communication; and influence the phenomena themselves. This challenge calls for new ways of integrating previously collected data and collecting new evidence when reengineering scientific concepts. A new wave of proposals suggests that scientists must reassess scientific concepts in light of accumulated evidence. However, reengineering scientific concepts in light of data is challenging because scientific concepts affect the evidence itself in multiple ways. Among other possible influences, concepts (i) prime scientists to overemphasize within-concept similarities and between-concept differences; (ii) lead scientists to measure conceptually relevant dimensions more accurately; (iii) serve as units of scientific experimentation, communication, and theory-building; and (iv) affect the phenomena themselves. When looking for improved ways to carve nature at its joints, scholars must take the concept-laden nature of evidence into account to avoid entering a vicious circle of concept-evidence mutual substantiation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]