Computational discovery of communicable scientific knowledge

In this paper we distinguish between two computational paradigms for knowledge discovery that share the notion of heuristic search, but differ in the importance they place on using scientific formalisms to state discovered knowledge. We also report progress on computational methods for discovering such communicable knowledge in two domains, one involving the regulation of photosynthesis in phytoplankton and the other involving carbon production by vegetation in the Earth ecosystem. In each case, we describe a representation for models, methods for using data to revise existing models, and some initial results. In closing, we discuss related work on the computational discovery of communicable scientific knowledge and outline directions for future research.