PatLangleyandWillBridewell
ComputationalLearningLaboratory
CenterfortheStudyofLanguageandInformation
StanfordUniversity,Stanford,CA94305
Sciencecomprisessomeofthemostchallengingcog-nitivetasksinwhichhumansengage,whichmakesitanaturaltargetforAIresearch.Simon(1966)firstpro-posedtheideathatwemightexplainscientificdiscoveryincomputationaltermsandautomatetheprocessesin-volvedonacomputer.DENDRAL(Feigenbaumetal.,1971)demonstratedthisbyinferringthestructuresoforganicmoleculesfrommassspectra,aproblemprevi-ouslysolvedonlybyexperiencedchemists.Somewhatlater,Lenat’s(1977)AMandLangley’s(1981)BACONrediscoveredanumberofconjecturesandlawsfromthehistoryofmathematicsandscience.Researchcontinuedduringthe1980s,leadingtomultiplebooksonthetopic(e.g.,Shrager&Langley,1990).Researchinthisperiodalsofocusedonhistoricalexamples,butthe1990ssawrepeatedapplicationoftheseideastodiscovernewsci-entificknowledge,asLangley(2000)hasrecounted.However,thepastdecadehasseenareductionofworkoncomputationalscientificreasoninganddiscov-ery,atleastwithintheAIcommunity.Undoubtedly,thishasresultedpartlyfromtheallureofcomputa-tionalbiologyandbioinformatics,whichhasconvincedmanyresearcherstofocusondomain-specificmethods.Othershavebeenattractedtothesmallermovementinscientificdatamining,whichtypicallyfocusesonimageanalysis.Bothdevelopmentshavedrawnpeopleawayfromthecomputationalstudyofscienceatamoregen-erallevel,andmanyresearchersinthenewareashavelittleknowledgeofwell-establishedAItechniquesthatprovedcrucialtoearlierefforts.Despitethesetrends,theoriginalchallengesremain,andweneedmorere-searchongeneralprinciplesforscientificreasoninganddiscoverythatcutacrossdomains.
Onesuchchallengeistodevelopcomputationalmeth-odsthatcovertheentirerangeofstructuresandpro-cessesthatoccurinscience.Theseincludetaxonomies,laws,theories,models,explanations,anomalies,andthemechanismsthatproduceandoperateoverthem.An-otherdauntingtaskinvolvescombiningthesemecha-nismsintointegratedsystemsthatcoverthegreatva-rietyofobservedscientificbehavior.Someresearchershavetakenpreliminarystepsalongtheselines(Kulka-rni&Simon,1988;Nordhausen&Langley,1993),butweneedmoreconcertedefforts.Akeysubtaskinvolves
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