Of skyhooks and the coevolution of scientific disciplines

The history of the natural sciences repeatedly shows that the unification o f a higher level theory with a lower level theory by reduction does not eli minate the need for the higher level theory nor preclude its further develo pment, leading to changes in the understanding of the lower level. The radi cal neuron doctrine proposes that the future science of psychology or lingu istics will derive principally from the evolution of understanding at the n eural level and not from current theories based an the observation of behav ior. It is far more likely that the two bodies of theory will coevolve in s emiautonomous fashion.