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The illusion of mechanism: Mechanistic fundamentalism or enlightenment?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 August 2011

Dennis Norris
Dennis Norris
Affiliation:
MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge CB2 7EF, United Kingdom. dennis.norris@mrc-cbu.cam.ac.ukhttp://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/people/dennis.norris
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Abstract

Rather than worrying about Bayesian Fundamentalists, I suggest that our real concern should be with Mechanistic Fundamentalists; that is, those who believe that concrete, but frequently untestable mechanisms, should be at the heart of all cognitive theories.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 34 , Issue 4 , August 2011 , pp. 208 - 209
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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References

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Sakamoto, Y., Jones, M. & Love, B. C. (2008) Putting the psychology back into psychological models: Mechanistic versus rational approaches. Memory and Cognition 36(6):1057–65.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed