an element. Learning that some chemical reactions are reversible led to the discovery of weight as a constant through reactions. And then it was discovered that some reactions involve definite and invariable weight ratios, refining understanding of constant traits. "Attempts to establish and explain the combining-weight regularities led to the development of the chemical atomic theory by John Dalton and others. ... Chemical elements were later redefined in terms of atomic number (the number of protons in the nucleus)." Chang claimed his examples of classification practices in chemistry confirmed the fallacy of the traditional assumption that natural kinds exist as mind-independent reality. He attributed this belief more to imagining supernatural intervention in the world, than to illogical induction. He did not consider the popular belief that innate psychological capacities enable traditional induction to work. "Much natural-kind talk has been driven by an intuitive metaphysical essentialism that concerns itself with an objective [generic] order of nature whose [universal] knowledge could, ironically, only be obtained by a supernatural being. Let us renounce such an unnatural notion of natural kinds. Instead, natural kinds should be conceived as something we humans may succeed in inventing and improving through scientific practice." Rasmus Winther's Contribution to Natural Kinds and Classification in Scientific Practice gave new meaning to natural objects and qualities in the nascent discipline of Geographic Information Science (GIS). This "inter-discipline" engages in discovering patterns in—and displaying spatial kinds of—data, using methods that make its results unique natural kinds. But it still creates kinds using induction to identify instrumental traits. "Collecting and collating geographical data, building geographical data-bases, and engaging in spatial analysis, visualization, and map-making all require organizing, typologizing, and classifying geographic space, objects, relations, and processes. I focus on the use of natural kinds ..., showing how practices of making and using kinds are contextual, fallible, plural, and purposive. The rich family of kinds involved in these activities are here baptized mapping kinds." He later identified sub-kinds of mapping kinds as "calibrating kinds," "feature kinds," and "object kinds" of "data model types." Winther identified "inferential processes of abstraction and generalization" as methods used by GIS, and explained how they generate digital maps. He illustrated two kinds of inquiry procedures, with sub-procedures to organize data. They are reminiscent of Dewey's multiple steps in modern inductive and deductive inference. Methods for transforming generic phenomena into kinds involve reducing complexity, amplifying, joining, and separating. Methods for