Can scientific development and children's cognitive development be the same process?

In this paper I assess Gopnik and Meltzoff's developmental psychology of sc ience as a contribution to the understanding of scientific development. I f ocus on two specific aspects of Gopnik and Meltzoff's approach: the relatio n between their views and recapitulationist views of ontogeny and phylogeny in biology, and their overall conception of cognition as a set of veridica l processes. First, I discuss several issues that arise from their appeal t o evolutionary biology, focusing specifically on the role of distinctions b etween ontogeny and phylogeny when appealing to biology for theoretical sup port. Second, I argue that to presuppose that cognition is veridical or "tr uth-tropic" can compromise attempts to understand scientific cognition both throughout history and in the present. Finally, I briefly sketch an evolut ionary approach to understanding scientific development that contrasts with Gopnik and Meltzoff's.