1-070 - When “epigenesis” means different things to different people: Metatheories and conceptual confusions in developmental science

Session Type: Conversation Roundtable

Integrative Statement

Conceptual analysis plays a vital—but all too often overlooked—role in the organization and functioning of any scientific discipline (Overton, 2010, 2015). The meaning that we attach to every theoretical concept employed in science draws from a broader set of philosophical assumptions, or metatheoretical frameworks, that we (as humans in general and as scientists in particular) make concerning the nature of reality (ontology) and how we come to know reality (epistemology) (Kuhn, 1962; Lakatos, 1978; Lerner, 2002; Pepper, 1942). Current metatheoretical division within the field of developmental science has established markedly different frameworks of meaning through which to view the theoretical concepts of our discipline. These different metatheoretical frameworks, in turn, have informed conceptually disparate readings of key theoretical concepts in our field. This roundtable brings together a panel of distinguished developmental scientists for the purpose of elucidating and critically examining the conceptually disparate readings that actively plague four highly influential theoretical concepts in developmental science today: the concepts of 1) epigenesis/probabilistic epigenesis, 2) life-span development, 3) embodiment, and 4) baselines for human development. The panel will discuss historical considerations for each concept, identify and illustrate the extent to which different conceptualizations have been applied to each concept in the developmental literature, and embed those different conceptualizations within developmental science’s current metatheoretical divide between Process-Relational and Cartesian-Split-Mechanistic paradigms.
Discussion may also evolve to address other examples of conceptual confusion that have impeded progress towards a more integrative developmental science.

David Witherington will serve as moderator for the roundtable session.

Sub Unit

• Methods, History, Theory

Moderator

• David C. Witherington, University of New Mexico

Panelists

• Robert Lickliter, Florida International University

• Willis F. Overton, Temple University

• Peter Marshall, Department of Psychology, Temple University.

• Darcia Narvaez, University of Notre Dame