The Value of Failure in Science: The Story of Grandmother Cells in Neuroscience
The Value of Failure in Science: The Story of Grandmother Cells in Neuroscience
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DOI：
10.3389/fnins.2019.01121
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发表时间：
2019-10-24
影响因子：
4.3
通讯作者：
Barwich, Ann-Sophie
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Barwich, Ann-Sophie
科学史册上充满了成功的事迹。只有在脚注中，我们才会听到失败、死胡同和被遗忘的想法。失败是研究进步的方式。然而，它几乎没有出现在科学的理论视角中。这是一个错误。失败，无论是明确的还是模棱两可的，都是启发式的成果。对失败的思考质疑了我们对成功的衡量标准，包括当前实践的概念基础，这在实验环境中只能是短暂的。本文提出了故障分析的启发式方法，即将某些想法或模型作为故障进行明确的处理。用祖母细胞的例子说明了失败作为失败的价值；一种有争议的观点，假设一个神经元编码高度特定但复杂的刺激，如一个人的祖母的图像。这一观点在大众科学中反复出现，在教科书中得到维护，我们有充分的理由对其理论和经验背景进行批判性的审视。
The annals of science are filled with successes. Only in footnotes do we hear about the failures, the cul-de-sacs, and the forgotten ideas. Failure is how research advances. Yet it hardly features in theoretical perspectives on science. That is a mistake. Failures, whether clear-cut or ambiguous, are heuristically fruitful in their own right. Thinking about failure questions our measures of success, including the conceptual foundations of current practice, that can only be transient in an experimental context. This article advances the heuristics of failure analysis, meaning the explicit treatment of certain ideas or models as failures. The value of failures qua being a failure is illustrated with the example of grandmother cells; the contested idea of a hypothetical neuron that encodes a highly specific but complex stimulus, such as the image of one's grandmother. Repeatedly evoked in popular science and maintained in textbooks, there is sufficient reason to critically review the theoretical and empirical background of this idea.