On the Process and Product of Cross-Species Generalization

There is virtually nothing of greater fundamental importance for the progress of science than the process of generalization. It is through generalization that specific observations are transformed and translated into scientific laws and principles. Scientific observations gathered in the most rigorous and objective fashion are meaningless unless they can be organized into a more general set of principles. “Scientific” laws that have not been derived from sets of actual data are in reality only speculative conjectures. The process of generalization provides the basis for converting specific data sets into larger explanatory principles. Without generalization there could be no science as we know it.