QUERIES 'N THEORIES: An instructional game on the DOT, DOT, DOT, ... approach to scientific method

Abstract

QUERIES 'N THEORIES provides a parallel to the strong inference approach to scientific method — designing experiments, observing data, and theorizing. The reiterated use of the DOT approach (Design, Observe, Theorize) in the problem-solving required by the game mirrors the regular, systematic application of strong inference in some areas of science (e.g., high energy physics and molecular biology) that have moved ahead much more rapidly than others. Moreover, the game embodies and provides practive in two aspects of scientific theorizing and designing which John Platt has pointed out as central to scientific advance: (1) the usefulness of multiple hypotheses and (2) disproof as science's mode of advance.

Players of QUERIES'N THEORIES assume the roles of a “native” and of linguists (“querists”) who are attempting to understand the native's language in a defined sense. Using strings of colored chips, the native secretly constructs the basic sentences and the replacement rules (if any) of his language. The querists ask questions by constructing queries (strings of colored chips) on the query mat. They seek to achieve an understanding of the language such that when the native in turn asks them about it by constructing queries on the query mat, they will be able to answer correctly. The goal is to ask the fewest number of questions necessary to achieve the specified understanding.

By presenting a programmed series of sample games that gradually and steadily increase in complexity, the author attempts to demonstrate that QUERIES'N THEORIES offers its players the opportunity to learn a powerful analytic skill. He concludes that the examples are sufficiently persuasive to indicate the value of rigorous empirical investigation of a series of hypotheses about the merits of QUERIES'N THEORIES as a vehicle for practicing and improving skill in the use of the strong inference approach to scientific method.