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What is ar_science?

andrew7shen/ar_science — explained in plain English

Analysis updated 2026-05-18

19PythonAudience · researcherComplexity · 3/5Setup · easy

In one sentence

Code and prompts for Analogical Reasoning, a method that uses an LLM to find creative cross-domain solutions to scientific problems.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((ar_science))
    What it does
      Extracts analogies
      Searches solutions
      Domain neutral
    Ways to run
      Claude Skill
      run_ar.py script
    Includes
      AR dataset
      Evaluation pipeline
      Case studies
    Tech stack
      Python
      Claude Code
    Audience
      Researchers
      Scientists

Code map

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What do people build with it?

USE CASE 1

Install the Claude Skill and run /analogical-reasoning on a scientific problem to get cross-domain solution ideas.

USE CASE 2

Run run_ar.py from the command line with Claude, OpenAI, or Gemini to generate analogies and solutions.

USE CASE 3

Study or reuse the included AR dataset and evaluation pipeline from the paper's case studies.

What is it built with?

PythonClaude Code

How does it compare?

andrew7shen/ar_science16nic/comfyui-agnes-ai6c696e68/gpt_signup_hybrid
Stars191919
LanguagePythonPythonPython
Setup difficultyeasymoderatehard
Complexity3/52/54/5
Audienceresearchervibe coderdeveloper

Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.

How do you get it running?

Difficulty · easy Time to first run · 30min

The Claude Skill path needs no API key of its own, the standalone script path requires an LLM provider API key.

So what is it?

ar_science is the code release accompanying a research paper about a method called Analogical Reasoning, or AR, which helps generate creative approaches to scientific problems. Given a problem, a language model runs two steps: first it extracts analogies to the problem from other domains along with explicit mappings between the objects involved, then it searches for real, existing solutions within each analogous domain. The paper tested this on biomedical problems, but the released prompts and skill are described as domain neutral, meaning they can be applied to any scientific problem. There are two ways to run it. The first is as a Claude Skill inside Claude Code: the skill folder is copied into the user level skills directory, after which typing a slash command followed by a problem description triggers the two step process. Adding a save flag stores the full output as JSON, including the analogies, their mappings and rationales, and the solutions found along with supporting details like relevance and citations. The second way is running a Python script directly from the command line, which defaults to using Claude but can be switched to OpenAI or Gemini by changing a constant near the top of the file. This path requires setting up API keys in a local environment file that is kept out of version control. The repository also includes the dataset used to evaluate AR, stored as a JSON file with its own separate documentation, along with the full evaluation pipeline and case studies from the paper. These cover topics like predicting the effects of biological perturbations, modeling interactions between brain regions, predicting properties of oligonucleotides, and analyzing cell to cell communication, each implemented as its own case study folder within the repository.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
Install the analogical-reasoning Claude Skill and run it on this scientific problem I'm stuck on.
Prompt 2
Run prompts/run_ar.py on my problem using the OpenAI provider instead of the default.
Prompt 3
Explain the difference between the extraction step and the search step in this method.
Prompt 4
Show me how to save the full JSON output of an AR run for later analysis.

Frequently asked questions

What is ar_science?

Code and prompts for Analogical Reasoning, a method that uses an LLM to find creative cross-domain solutions to scientific problems.

What language is ar_science written in?

Mainly Python. The stack also includes Python, Claude Code.

How hard is ar_science to set up?

Setup difficulty is rated easy, with roughly 30min to a first successful run.

Who is ar_science for?

Mainly researcher.

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