From: fulk@cs.rochester.edu (Mark Fulk)
Subject: Re: Science and methodology (was: Homeopathy ... tradition?)
Organization: University of Rochester
Distribution: inet

In article <C5JDuo.K13@unx.sas.com> sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com (Gary Merrill) writes:
>Of course we can't hope (currently at least) to explain how or why
>Kekule had the daydream of snakes in the fire biting their tails.
>Surely it wasn't the *only* daydream he had.  What was special about
>*this* one?  Could it have had something to do with a perceived
>*analogy* between the geometry of the snakes and problems concerning
>geometry of molecules?  Is such analogical reasoning "extra-scientific"?
>Or is it rather at the very heart of science (Perice's notion of abduction,
>the use of models within and across disciplines)?  Upon close examination,
>is there a non-rational mystical leap taking place, or is it perhaps
>closer to a formal (though often incomplete) analogy or model?

I feel the need to repeat myself: Kekule's dream is a rather bad example
of much of anything.  Read Root-Bernstein's book on the history of the
benzene ring.
-- 
Mark A. Fulk			University of Rochester
Computer Science Department	fulk@cs.rochester.edu
