Do Children and Other Animals Think Like Scientists?

A free public talk by Professor Marta Halina proposing a 'case-worker' account of how children and animals understand the causal world.

Professor Marta Halina examines the long-standing comparison of young children to little scientists, questioning whether children and animals such as chimpanzees, dogs and birds really learn through abstract general laws. Drawing on contemporary philosophy of science, she argues that scientists typically work in a piecemeal, pluralistic way, selecting among models case by case. The talk develops this 'case-worker' account using embodied and predictive processing theories of cognition, suggesting that causal understanding need not rely on universal laws. The event is in person and lasts one hour.