Varieties of Scientific Knowledge

Abstract

Scientific knowledge is distinguished from other ways of knowing by uniquely granting to people the predictive capabilities they require for interacting competently in the material world. This chapter identifies and discusses the varieties of scientific knowledge that seem most salient in every society: descriptions, categories and classifications, empirical generalizations, experimental laws, recipes, theories, and models. It is shown that every kind of knowledge—even the most basic descriptions—enables prediction; and each is linked, directly or indirectly, to performances that artifacts mediate or create. Consequently, archaeologists, focusing on changes in apparatus, have limitless opportunities to study the reciprocal relationships between apparatus and the creation of new knowledge.