Animal Cognition, Epistemic Fluency, Social Networks and the Scientific Habit of Mind

This concept paper suggests a new way of thinking about the origin, growth, and spread of a general-purpose "scientific habit of mind" in humans, and discusses how intelligent coaching agents may help. The argument begins with a description of the role of the cognitive cycle in animal thinking. We then examine critical differences between non-human and human cognition, especially in respect to the crucial and yet problematic role of language and linguistic interaction in the "widening spread and deepening hold" of scientific thinking and discourse in human populations. The paper concludes with a vision of a new kind of open, networked learning community inhabited by human learners, human experts, and intelligent agents, and suggests ways of evaluating the development of scientific thinking within these communities using a combination of social network and semantic space analysis.