The 3 April issue contained two Reports about automated science (“Distilling free-form natural laws from experimental data,” M. Schmidt and H. Lipson, p. 81, and “The automation of science,” R. D. King et al., p. 85). These Reports are seriously mistaken about the nature of the scientific enterprise, particularly regarding what theorists do and the meaning of physical law. As Thomas Kuhn famously argued, what most scientists do most of the time—which he called “normal science” and Rutherford called “stamp collecting”—does not contribute very much to the advancement of knowledge; rather, this normal science simply fleshes out the consequences of the paradigms that have been established by truly revolutionary advances. Even if machines did contribute to normal science, we see no mechanism by which they could create a Kuhnian revolution and thereby establish new physical law.
In the Report by Schmidt and Lipson, a machine deduces the equation behind a sample of chaotic motion. The discovery of deterministic chaos is an example of true Kuhnian revolution; others were its application to unexpected fields like meteorology and population biology. In the constrained problem in the Report, the relevant physical law and variables are known in advance; it is hardly a template for the creative, exploratory nature of true science.
The 3 April issue contained two Reports about automated science (“Distilling free-form natural laws from experimental data,” M. Schmidt and H. Lipson, p. 81, and “The automation of science,” R. D. King et al., p. 85). These Reports are seriously mistaken about the nature of the scientific enterprise, particularly regarding what theorists do and the meaning of physical law. As Thomas Kuhn famously argued, what most scientists do most of the time—which he called “normal science” and Rutherford called “stamp collecting”—does not contribute very much to the advancement of knowledge; rather, this normal science simply fleshes out the consequences of the paradigms that have been established by truly revolutionary advances. Even if machines did contribute to normal science, we see no mechanism by which they could create a Kuhnian revolution and thereby establish new physical law.
In the Report by Schmidt and Lipson, a machine deduces the equation behind a sample of chaotic motion. The discovery of deterministic chaos is an example of true Kuhnian revolution; others were its application to unexpected fields like meteorology and population biology. In the constrained problem in the Report, the relevant physical law and variables are known in advance; it is hardly a template for the creative, exploratory nature of true science.