bio-connectionist vs comp-neurosci

[Steve Lehar]

Jim Bower draws a  sharp  distinction between biological connectionism
and computational neuroscience.  As I understand it, he  defines these
as follows:

  BIOLOGICAL  CONNECTIONISM: Using connectionist  ideas to explore the
  functional  architecture of specific   biological circuits  found in
  nature.  (Paying attention to the detailed structure of the brain as
  biologists)

  COMPUTATIONAL NEUROSCIENCE: Exploring the  theoretical possibilities
  of  abstract   connectionist  architectures  for   their information
  representation and processing potential.

I have no  problem   with  these definitions, they   represent the two
pronged approach of science, theory and observation.   In physics, for
instance, mathematics  explores  the possible functional relationships
between variables- linear, quadratic,  exponential, periodic  etc. and
physics   makes  use  of    these  functional  relationships  wherever
applicable to physical observations.

Where I have  difficulty  with Bower's view  is when he says  that the
theoretical exploration  and the physical observations  have little to
do with  one  another.  He  says,  for instance  of  the  Hartline and
Ratliff model "The fact that  [the] model is largely indistinguishable
from  several    modern  connectionist    models is  interesting   but
irrelevant".   Is he saying  that  theoretical  exploration of systems
that are similar, but not identical  to a specific physical system are
irrelevant to that system?  Is  it not  exactly the  marriage  between
extensive theoretical modeling  and  precise physical observation that
has led to the scientific revolution?  This is  exemplified by the way
that  the findings    of pure  mathematics always   seem  to  find  an
application in the applied world sooner or later.

Theoretical  investigation is particularly  fruitful  whenever science
experiences  a   "paradigm shift",    discovering a  new  mathematical
formalism to better discribe an old set of data.   Is this not exactly
what is  happening  in  our field    today?  Could  one  not say,  for
instance,  that   the  center-surround  connectionist   models derived
through theoretical explorations  in some sense "predict" the physical
observations of the  Hartline and  Ratliff data by  showing that  such
architectures have desirable computational properties?

Bower  says  "It should  be  obvious why   biologists   object to such
[computational neuroscience] models."  Pardon my ignorance, but I fail
to see this 'obvious' fact- would you care to  enlighten me as  to why
biologists  would object to  theoretical explorations of computational
mechanisms that are clearly much more like the brain  than alternative
computational models?

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