ABSTRACT
Scientific realism posits that the world exists independent of mental states about the world. The reliance of the scientific mind on cognition and language for representations of processes of the world suggests that there may be boundaries in knowledge representation based on the boundaries of cognition and language. Metaphysical constructivism suggests that the world is a product of creation or construction of scientific theory; similarly, scientific theory of the world is a product or creation of the mind. Science as a cultural niche discovers laws of nature based on processes of scientific discovery. Scientific terminology is important for scientific explanations, as they provide a basis for grouping and reasoning of natural phenomena. Culture influences the construction of scientific terminology for explanations in cultural neuroscience. Analytic cognition may construct scientific terminology that refers to objects and categories, while holistic cognition may construct scientific terminology that refers to relations among categories.
