UC San Diego philosopher, an expert in a new discipline called data mining, has been called in by NASA to assist with the design of the next generation of planetary rovers.

Clark Glymour, a philosopher of science, is particularly adept at identifying and verbalizing the essentials of problems and taking practical steps to solve them.

The problem NASA has is that future rovers–unlike Sojourner, which is currently ruminating on Mars–will be asked to do more than simply collect and transmit data; they will be expected to reach tentative conclusions about the data, formulate hypotheses, and make suggestions for further research on the spot. These new rovers will be designed by specialists with a wide variety of backgrounds, each with his or her own way of solving problems. And that’s where Glymour comes in: As a philosopher, he should be able to help NASA officials reconcile the different approaches that, for instance, scientists–who are fundamentally quantitative–and geologists–who are often descriptive or qualitative–take to information.