This monograph contributes to the scientific misconduct debate from an oblique perspective, by analysing seven novels devoted to this issue, namely: Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis (1925), The affair by C.P. Snow (1960), Cantor’s Dilemma by Carl Djerassi (1989), Perlmann’s Silence by Pascal Mercier (1995), Intuition by Allegra Goodman (2006), Solar by Ian McEwan (2010) and Derailment by Diederik Stapel (2012). Scientific misconduct, i.e. fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, but also other questionable research practices, have become a focus of concern for academic (...) communities worldwide, but also for managers, funders and publishers of research. The aforementioned novels offer intriguing windows into integrity challenges emerging in contemporary research practices. They are analysed from a continental philosophical perspective, providing a stage where various voices, positions and modes of discourse are mutually exposed to one another, so that they critically address and question one another. They force us to start from the admission that we do not really know what misconduct is. Subsequently, by providing case histories of misconduct, they address integrity challenges not only in terms of individual deviance but also in terms of systemic crisis, due to current transformations in the ways in which knowledge is produced. Rather than functioning as moral vignettes, the author argues that misconduct novels challenge us to reconsider some of the basic conceptual building blocks of integrity discourse. (shrink)

Topic model is a well proven tool to investigate the semantic content of textual corpora. Yet corpora sometimes include texts in several languages, making it impossible to apply language-specific computational approaches over their entire content. This is the problem we encountered when setting to analyze a philosophy of science corpus spanning over eight decades and including original articles in Dutch, German and French, on top of a large majority of articles in English. To circumvent this multilingual problem, we use (...) machine-translation tools to bulk translate non-English documents into English. Though largely imperfect, especially syntactically, these translations nevertheless provide correctly translated terms and preserve the semantic proximity of documents with respect to one another. To assess the quality of this translation step, we develop a “semantic topology preservation test” that relies on estimating the extent to which document-to-document distances have been preserved during translation. We then conduct an LDA topic-model analysis over the entire corpus of translated and English original texts, and compare it to a topic-model done over the English original texts only. We thereby identify the specific contribution of the translated texts. These studies reveal a more complete picture of main topics that can found in the philosophy of science literature, especially during the early days of the discipline when numerous articles were published in languages other than English. (shrink)

The novel is set in Waxahachie, Texas after the Superconducting Super Collider comes into operation. It's about high energy physics, wormholes, alien contact, time travel, and the killing of the SSC project.

We describe a simple, flexible exercise that can be implemented in the philosophy of science classroom: students are asked to determine the contents of a closed container without opening it. This exercise has revealed itself as a useful platform from which to examine a wide range of issues in the philosophy of science and may, we suggest, even help us think about improving the public understanding of science.

This paper aims to understand how recent discussion of novel and robust behaviour in physics might be applied in biology and other special sciences. In particular, it looks at the prospects for extending an account of novel explanation to biological examples. Despite the differences in the disciplines, the prospects look good, at least when we look at a biological example in which a certain kind of reduction is possible.

We discuss how a novel can illuminate the moral dimensions of science and healthcare. The critical distance afforded by the novel pro.

Shortly after bacteriologist Paul de Kruif had been dismissed from a research position at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, he started contributing to a novel in collaboration with the future Nobel laureate Sinclair Lewis. The novel, Arrowsmith, would become one of the most famous satires on medicine and science. Using de Kruif’s correspondence with his idol Jacques Loeb, this paper describes the many ways in which medical science is depicted in Arrowsmith. This article compares the novel with (...) de Kruif’s and Loeb’s biographies, and focuses on the struggles of the main character, Martin Arrowsmith, as an allegory of the institutionalisation of medical research in the US, shows that Sinclair’s purpose is to caricaturise scientific work in modern medical research institutions anywhere and shows that the novel depicts a reductionist philosophy of research that seems to contradict the “messiness” of medical practice. (shrink)

In this thesis, I investigate realist, anti-realist and pluralist views in the philosophy of science and the philosophy of complexity. The philosophy of science can inform the philosophy of complexity and vice versa because we can consider scientific inquiry to largely involve the study of complex systems. I however find that the relevant realist, anti-realist and pluralist views are problematic in various ways, and that a version of pragmatism suggests a promising alternative. This version of pragmatism incorporates elements (...) of pluralism, but maintains a commitment to epistemic hierarchy, convergence and progress. The way to develop such a version of pragmatism is, I argue, by rebooting William Whewell’s 19th century philosophy of science. Whewell however held to the following two transcendental claims: 1. Empirical inquiry undertaken in science properly practiced can reveal necessary truths. 2. The revelation of such necessary truths grants us a glimpse of the mind of God. Such transcendental claims are obviously at odds with pragmatism. There are however core features of Whewell’s view that are notably pragmatist in nature, features that explicitly inspired Charles Sanders Piece’s convergent pragmatism. These are as follows: 3. Subject and object (or mind and world) are inextricably entwined during scientific inquiry; they are not separated by anything like a correspondence relationship. 4. Science progresses via what Whewell calls the consilience of inductions (an ongoing merging of scientific theories, a merging that increases our understanding of the world over time). I modify Whewell’s view by stripping away its transcendental elements while maintaining its pragmatist elements. What remains is, I argue, a robust and novel kind of pragmatism suitable for being introduced into the contemporary philosophy of science. Whewell suitably-pragmatised can offer new insights into ongoing debates, particularly those around the nature of scientific progress, scientific truth and scientific understanding. (shrink)

This paper is a review of Suarez, M. (ed.) Fictions in Science (Routledge).

adiant Cool" has the makings of a gripping noir thriller: a missing body, a tough-talking female sleuth and a mustachioed Russian agent mixed up in a shadowy plot to take over the world. But the novel, by Dan Lloyd, a neurophilosopher at Trinity College in Hartford, is also a serious work of scholarship, the unlikely vehicle for an abstruse new theory of consciousness.

We describe a simple, flexible exercise that can be implemented in the philosophy of science classroom: students are asked to determine the contents of a closed container, over the course of a semester, without opening it. This exercise has proved a useful platform from which to examine a wide range of issues in the philosophy of science and may, we suggest, even help us think about improving the public understanding of science.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1972.

review and discussion of: John Wright: Explaining science’s success: Understanding how scientific knowledge works. Durham: Acumen, 2012.

Among the works of the ancient Greek satirist Lucian of Samosata, well-known for his scathing and obscene irony, there is the novel True History. In this work Lucian, being in an intense satirical mood, intended to undermine the values of the classical world. Through a continuous parade of wonderful events, beings and situations as a substitute for the realistic approach to reality, he parodies the scientific knowledge, creating a literary model for the subsequent writers. Without doubt, nowadays, Lucian’s large influence (...) on the history of literature has been highlighted. What is missing is pointing out the specific characteristics that would lead to the placement of True History at the starting point of Science Fiction. We are going to highlight two of these features: first, the operation of “cognitive estrangement”, which aims at providing the reader with the perception of the difference between the convention and the truth, and second, the use of strange innovations (“novum”) that verify the value of Lucian’s work by connecting it to historicity. (shrink)

In this chapter, we argue that in order to understand the interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary dialectics in sustainability science, it is useful to see sustainability science as a kind of management science, and then to highlight the hard-soft distinction in systems thinking. First, we argue that the commonly made natural-social science dichotomy is relatively unimportant and unhelpful. We then outline the differences between soft and hard systems thinking as a more relevant and helpful distinction, mainly as a (...) difference between perspectives in systemic modeling toward models. We also illustrate that the distinction is methodologically useful to advance sustainability science by enabling us (i) to suggest novel ways of using existing theoretical, experimental, and computational resources of the sciences for renewable resource management, and (ii) to disentangle disciplinary disagreements in climate science. (shrink)

While many philosophers of science have accorded special evidential significance to tests whose results are "novel facts", there continues to be disagreement over both the definition of novelty and why it should matter. The view of novelty favored by Giere, Lakatos, Worrall and many others is that of use-novelty: An accordance between evidence e and hypothesis h provides a genuine test of h only if e is not used in h's construction. I argue that what lies behind the intuition (...) that novelty matters is the deeper intuition that severe tests matter. I set out a criterion of severity akin to the notion of a test's power in Neyman-Pearson statistics. I argue that tests which are use-novel may fail to be severe, and tests that are severe may fail to be use-novel. I discuss the 1919 eclipse data as a severe test of Einstein's law of gravity. (shrink)

Leplin attempts to reinstate the common sense idea that theoretical knowledge is achievable, indeed that its achievement is part of the means to progress in empirical knowledge. He sketches the genesis of the skeptical position, then introduces his argument for Minimalist Scientific Realism -- the requirement that novel predicitons be explained, and the claim that only realism about scientific theories can explain the importance of novel prediction.

Advancements in science and technology have not only brought hope to humankind to produce disease-free offspring, but also offer possibilities to genetically enhance the next generation’s traits and capacities. Human genetic enhancement, however, raises complex ethical questions, such as to what extent should it be allowed? It has been a great challenge for humankind to develop robust ethical guidelines for human genetic enhancement that address both public concerns and needs. We believe that research about public concerns is necessary prior (...) to developing such guidelines, yet the issues have not been thoroughly investigated in many countries, including Malaysia. Since the novel often functions as a medium for the public to express their concerns, this paper explores ethical concerns about human genetic enhancement expressed in four Malay science fiction novels namely Klon, Leksikon Ledang, Transgenesis Bisikan Rimba and Transgenik Sifar. Religion has a strong influence on the worldview of the Malays therefore some concerns such as playing God are obviously religious. Association of the negative image of scientists as well as the private research companies with the research on human genetic enhancement reflects the authors’ concerns about the main motivations for conducting such research and the extent to which such research will benefit society. (shrink)

BackgroundAdvances in biomedicine can substantially change human life. However, progress is not always followed by ethical reflection on its consequences or scientists’ responsibility for their creations. The humanities can help health sciences students learn to critically analyse these issues; in particular, literature can aid discussions about ethical principles in biomedical research. Mary Shelley’sFrankenstein; or, the modern Prometheus(1818) is an example of a classic novel presenting complex scenarios that could be used to stimulate discussion.Main textWithin the framework of the 200th anniversary (...) of the novel, we searched PubMed to identify works that explore and discuss its value in teaching health sciences. Our search yielded 56 articles, but only two of these reported empirical findings. Our analysis of these articles identified three main approaches to usingFrankensteinin teaching health sciences: discussing the relationship between literature and science, analysing ethical issues in biomedical research, and examining the importance of empathy and compassion in healthcare and research. After a critical discussion of the articles, we propose usingFrankensteinas a teaching tool to prompt students to critically analyse ethical aspects of scientific and technological progress, the need for compassion and empathy in medical research, and scientists’ responsibility for their discoveries.ConclusionFrankensteincan help students reflect on the personal and social limits of science, the connection between curiosity and scientific progress, and scientists’ responsibilities. Its potential usefulness in teaching derives from the interconnectedness of science, ethics, and compassion.Frankensteincan be a useful tool for analysing bioethical issues related to scientific and technological advances, such as artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, and cloning. Empirical studies measuring learning outcomes are necessary to confirm the usefulness of this approach. (shrink)

The biological effects of low doses of toxic and carcinogenic chemicals are currently a matter of significant scientific controversy. This paper argues that philosophers of science can contribute to alleviating this controversy by examining it with the aid of a novel account of scientific anomaly. Specifically, analysis of contemporary research on chemical hormesis (i.e., alleged beneficial biological effects produced by low doses of substances that are harmful at higher doses) suggests that scientists may initially describe anomalous phenomena in terms (...) of multiple distinct "characterizations," each of which is compatible with current empirical evidence. By focusing attention on this feature of scientific anomalies, philosophers of science can alleviate the controversy over low-dose chemical effects in at least two ways: (1) they can pinpoint the significant ways in which particular characterizations frame the controversy, and (2) they can identify the methodological value judgments at stake in researchers' choice of characterizations. (shrink)

The interest in crossmodal correspondences, including those involving sounds and involving tastes, has experienced rapid growth in recent years. However, the mechanisms underlying these correspondences are not well understood. In the present study (N = 302), we used an associative learning paradigm, based on previous literature using simple sounds with no consensual taste associations (i.e., square and triangle wave sounds at 200 Hz) and taste words (i.e., sweet and bitter), to test the influence of two potential mechanisms in establishing sound–taste (...) correspondences and investigate whether either learning mechanism could give rise to new and long‐lasting associations. Specifically, we examined an emotional mediation account (i.e., using sad and happy emoji facial expressions) and a transitive path (i.e., sound‐taste correspondence being mediated by color, using red and black colored squares). The results revealed that the associative learning paradigm mapping the triangle wave tone with a happy emoji facial expression induced a novel crossmodal correspondence between this sound and the word sweet. Importantly, we found that this novel association was still present two months after the experimental learning paradigm. None of the other mappings, emotional or transitive, gave rise to any significant associations between sound and taste. These findings provide evidence that new crossmodal correspondences between sounds and tastes can be created by leveraging the affective connection between both dimensions, helping elucidate the mechanisms underlying these associations. Moreover, these findings reveal that these associations can last for several weeks after the experimental session through which they were induced. (shrink)

The standard view in current philosophy of creativity says that being creative has two requirements: being novel and being valuable. The standard view on creativity has recently become an object of critical scrutiny. Hills and Bird have specifically proposed to remove the value requirement from the definition, as it is not clear that creative objects are necessarily valuable or creative people necessarily praiseworthy. In this paper, I argue against Hills and Bird, since eliminating the element of value from the explanation (...) of creativity hinders the understanding of the role that creative products play in actual epistemic practices, which are fundamentally normative. More specifically, I argue that the terms ‘creativity’ and ‘creative’ function as thick epistemic concepts when employed by competent epistemic agents in practice, that is, these concepts have both a descriptive and an evaluative content that cannot be disentangled from one another. Accordingly, I suggest that philosophers should prefer thick accounts over thin accounts of creativity. A thick account of creativity is one that endorses the standard view at its basis, but further develops it in two ways: by stressing the entanglement of the value and novelty requirements; by permitting to encompass a range of domain-specific characterizations of such entanglement for different epistemic situations. In order to take the first steps in the development of such a thick account of creativity, I look at the domain of scientific practices as a case in point, and try to spell out what the thickness of creative instances typically entails here. Namely, I identify the worthy novelty of creative models and methods with their potential to clarify a tradition, with fruitfulness, and with the fulfilment of exploratory aims. (shrink)

“Lambeth Palace is my Washpot. Over Fulham have I cast my breeches.” So declared the novelist and secularist H. G. Wells in a letter to his mistress, Rebecca West, in May 1917. His claim was that, because of him, Britain was “full of theological discussion” and theological books were “selling like hot cakes”. He was lunching with liberal churchmen and dining with bishops. Certainly, the first of the books published during Wells’s short “religious period”, the novel Mr. Britling Sees It (...) Through, had sold very well on both sides of the Atlantic and made Wells financially secure. Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy (“Woodbine Willie”) wrote that, “Everyone ought to read Mr. H. G. Wells’s great novel, Mr. Britling Sees It Through. It is a gallant and illuminating attempt to state the question, and to answer it. His thought has brought him to a very real and living faith in God revealed in Jesus Christ, and has also brought relief to many troubled minds among the officers of the British Army.” Yet, Wells’s God was explicitly a finite God, and his theology was far from orthodox. How can we account for his boast and for the clerical affirmation which he certainly did receive? This article examines and re-evaluates previous accounts of the responses of clergy to Wells’s writing, correcting some narratives. It discusses the way in which many clergy used Mr. Britling as a means by which to engage in a populist way with the question of theodicy, and examines the letters which Wells received from several prominent clerics, locating their responses in the context of their own theological writings. This is shown to be key to understanding the reaction of writers such as Studdert Kennedy to Mr. Britling Sees It Through. Finally, an assessment is made of the veracity of Wells’s boasting to his mistress, concluding that his claims were somewhat exaggerated. “Lambeth Palace is my Washpot, Over Fulham have I cast my breeches.” Mit diesen Worten erklärte der literarisch außergewöhnlich erfolgreiche und entschieden säkular denkende, kirchenkritische Schriftsteller und Science-Fiction-Pionier Herbert George Wells seiner Geliebten, dass seinetwegen Großbritannien “full of theological discussion” sei. Nicht ohne Eitelkeit schrieb er es seinem im September 1916 mit Blick auf den Krieg geschriebenen und stark autobiographisch gefärbten Roman Mr. Britling Sees it Through von knapp 450 Seiten zu, dass theologische Bücher reißenden Absatz fänden. Auch war er stolz darauf, liberale Kleriker zum Lunch zu treffen und von Bischöfen zum abendlichen Dinner eingeladen zu werden. In einer kurzen Phase seines Lebens war – oder inszenierte sich – Wells als ein frommer, gläubiger Mensch. Sein damals veröffentlichter Roman Mr. Britling Sees It Through verkaufte sich sowohl in Nordamerika als auch im Heimatland so gut, dass der Autor nun definitiv finanziell gesichert war. Der anglikanische Priester und Dichter Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy, der im Ersten Weltkrieg Woodbine Willie genannt wurde, weil er verletzten und sterbenden Soldaten in den Phasen der Vorbereitung auf den Tod Woodbine-Zigaretten anbot, empfahl die Lektüre von Wells’ “great novel” Mr. Britling mit den Worten: “It is a gallant and illuminating attempt to state the question, and to answer it. His thought has brought him to a very real and living faith in God revealed in Jesus Christ, and has also brought relief to many troubled minds among the officers of the British Army.” Allerdings war H. G. Wells’ Gott ein durchaus endlicher Gott, und seine Theologie war alles andere als orthodox. Wie lassen sich dennoch seine evidente Prahlerei und die emphatische Zustimmung zu seinem Roman in den britischen Klerikereliten erklären? Im Aufsatz werden zunächst einige ältere Deutungen der Zustimmung führender Kleriker zu Wells’ Roman untersucht und einige der dabei leitenden Deutungsmuster kritisch infrage gestellt. Deutlich wird, dass nicht wenige anglikanische Geistliche Mr. Britling dazu nutzten, um höchst populistisch das umstrittene Theodizeeproblem anzusprechen. Auch werden die Briefe prominenter Geistlicher an Wells analysiert, mit Blick auf ihre eigenen Publikationen. Diese Reaktionen haben stark Studdert Kennedys Haltung zu Mr. Britling Sees It Through beeinflusst. Besonders aufrichtig war Wells mit Blick auf sich selbst allerdings nicht. Die Selbstinszenierung gegenüber seiner Geliebten war einfach nur peinliche Übertreibung. (shrink)

One of the most troubling and persistent challenges for Bayesian Confirmation Theory is the Problem of Old Evidence. The problem arises for anyone who models scientific reasoning by means of Bayesian Conditionalization. This article addresses the problem as follows: First, I clarify the nature and varieties of the POE and analyze various solution proposals in the literature. Second, I present a novel solution that combines previous attempts while making weaker and more plausible assumptions. Third and last, I summarize my findings (...) and put them into the context of the general debate about POE and Bayesian reasoning. (shrink)

The accommodation of evidence has been argued to be associated with several methodological problems that should prompt evaluators to lower their confidence in the accommodative theory. Accommodators may overfit their model to data (Hitchcock and Sober, Br J Philos Sci 55(1):1–34, 2004. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjps/55.1.1), hunt for (spurious) associations between variables (Mayo, Error and the growth of experimental knowledge. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1996, pp 294–318), or ‘fudge’ their theory in the effort to accommodate a particular datum (Lipton, Inference to the (...) best explanation. Routledge, London, 2004, pp. 164–183). The converse of accommodation, novel prediction, has been offered as a solution. If theorists novelly predict empirical results rather than accommodate those results, the potential risks of accommodation are avoided, and the theory warrants greater confidence. This paper evaluates if the problems of accommodation justify a preference for novel prediction over accommodation for evaluators of a scientific theory. I argue that there is currently insufficient evidence to conclude that the problems of accommodation result in a predictivist advantage in theory confirmation. Taking into consideration the disadvantages of novel prediction and the advantages of accommodation, the impact of further evidential factors, and recent scientific evidence about the consequences of novel prediction and accommodation, novel prediction and accommodation appear roughly on a par, or accommodation is even superior in the current context. (shrink)

The portrayal of novel neurotechnologies in Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report serves to inoculate viewers from important moral considerations that are displaced by the film’s somewhat singular emphasis on the question of how to reintroduce freedom of choice into an otherwise technology driven world. This sets up a crisis mentality and presents a false dilemma regarding the appropriate use, and regulation, of neurotechnologies. On the one hand, it seems that centralized power is required to both control and effectively implement such technologies (...) and, on the other hand, individual heroic resistance is required to protect citizens from the invasions of personal privacy and state control made possible through neurotechnologies. While Minority Report, as a dystopic vision of emergent neurotechnologies, engages surface ethical issues it risks cheapening them through its rather simplistic, dichotomous analysis. Most conspicuously absent from this approach is a sense of the social matrices that work to circumscribe or augment expressions of human freedom, privacy, control and power that are all implicated in our engagement with novel neurotechnologies. Were Minority Report unique in this respect it would have little interest, but we think this type of cheapening of ethical discourse about novel technologies is common. Because science fiction film informs the social imaginary in which ethical considerations and ultimately policy decisions take place, such cheapening risks subverting pervasive and tangible ethical issues by focusing on the sensationalistic and simplistic. (shrink)

This paper aims to analyse how literary fiction deals with two real cases of philistine violence on cultural objects, one artistic and the other scientific. In this way, we will analyse Mishima's novel, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, which narrates the destruction of one of the “jewels of Kyoto,” as well as Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Agent, which novelised the attack against the meridian of Greenwich. In both cases, we are confronted with the same attitude, namely, the insane resentment (...) against the reality principle. (shrink)

Evidence that confirms a scientific hypothesis is said to be ‘novel’ if it is not discovered until after the hypothesis isconstructed. The philosophical issues surrounding novel confirmation have been well summarized by Campbell and Vinci [1983]. They write that philosophers of science generally agree that when observational evidence supports a theory, the confirmation is much stronger when the evidence is ‘novel’... There are, nevertheless, reasons to be skeptical of this tradition... The notion of novel confirmation is beset with a (...) theoretical puzzle about how the degree of confirmation can change without any change in the evidence, hypothesis, or auxiliary assumptions... There have not yet appeared any obviously satisfactory solutions to these problems Much of the literature on novel confirmation relies on the Bayesian analysis of conditional probabilities. Let H represent a hypothesis, E an event that confirms the hypothesis, and B some relevant background information. Denote by Pr the conditional probability of x given y. There are various plausible measures of the degree of support that E lends to H. Among these are: Degree of support = Pr Degree of support = Pr – Pr Degree of support = Pr – Pr Degree of support = Pr – Pt In the work cited, Campbell and Vinci offer a somewhat more involved Bayesian interpretation. Formula is discussed by Gardner [1981] who points out that under this formulation there can be no role for novelty. 'The function Pr contains no third slot in which to insert a temporal relation between the invention of H and the inventor's learning E. Obviously, then, this relation could not possibly affect E's support of H.' Formula, on the other hand, suggests a role for novelty. Bayes's Theorem allows us to rewrite the formula as Degree of support = Pr x [Pr – 1] We can use 1/Pr as a measure of the novelty of E. Then shows that the degree of support increases with novelty of E. In the paper already cited, Campbell and Vinci discuss shortcomings of this analysis. Formula expresses an alternative offered by Howson [1984]. In that formula, Pr represents the probability of H assuming that only B – {E} is known. This allows for the possibility of non-novel facts generating support for hypotheses. Niiniluoto [1984] argues for a variant along the lines of, in which we account for the possibility that the theorist was unaware that his hypothesis entails E. One problem in deciding among these approaches is that the choice of a definition for the degree of support appears arbitrary. What kind of argument could justify the choice of one definition over another? It is our position that there can be no basis for addressing this question in the absence of an explicit model of the process by which hypotheses are generated. Only in the presence of such a model can the various conditional probabilities be given meaningful interpretations. We provide such models in Sections 1, 2 and 4. The simple model of Section 1, incorporating strong assumptions, yields the conclusion that novelty is irrelevant. When these assumptions are relaxed in the later sections, novelty becomes relevant for a variety of reasons. It is at least potentially the case that scientists have more information about their own abilities than is publicly available, and this information might influence their decisions about whether even to attempt novel prediction. If this is so, then it should be incorporated into the model of hypothesis generation. This requires an explicit discussion of how scientists respond to incentives and how the incentives themselves evolve, which in turn takes us into the realm of economic theory. We have addressed these issues in another paper, written for an audience of economists. The results of this research are summarized in Section 3. (shrink)

In this paper I comment on a recent paper by [Scerri, E., & Worrall, J. . Prediction and the periodic table. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 32, 407–452.] about the role temporally novel and use-novel predictions played in the acceptance of Mendeleev’s periodic table after the proposal of the latter in 1869. Scerri and Worrall allege that whereas temporally novel predictions—despite Brush’s earlier claim to the contrary—did not carry any special epistemic weight, use-novel predictions did indeed contribute (...) to the acceptance of the table. Although I agree with their first claim, I disagree with their second. In order to spell out my disagreement, I not only revisit Scerri and Worrall’s interpretation of crucial historical evidence they have cited in support of the ‘heuristic account’ of use-novel predictions, but I also criticise the latter on general grounds.Keywords: Periodic table; Dmitri Mendeleev; Noble gases; Use-novel predictions; Heuristic account; Ad hoc hypotheses. (shrink)

In the past decade structures and processes for the ethical review of UK health care research have undergone rapid change. Although this has focused users' attention on the functioning of review committees, it remains rare to read a substantive view from the inside. This article presents details of processes and findings resulting from a novel structured reflective exercise undertaken by a newly formed research ethics review panel in a university school of nursing and midwifery. By adopting and adapting some of (...) the knowledge to be found in the art and science of malt whisky tasting, a framework for critical reflection is presented and applied. This enables analysis of the main contemporary issues for a review panel that is primarily concerned with research into nursing education and practice. In addition to structuring the panel's own literary narrative, the framework also generates useful visual representation for further reflection. Both the analysis of issues and the framework itself are presented as of potential value to all nurses, health care professionals and educationalists with an interest in ethical review. (shrink)

In recent decades we have been given one of the most interesting concepts in Islamic intellectual history, `the scientific miracle of Qur’ān whereby the proponents have almost established the scientific theories in the Qur’ān. However, such ardent claims must not come to be without any inspiration and methodology. This article, firstly, tries to trace the inspiration of such concept and then describe the methodology. However, as exciting as this concept seems, the methodology brings forth a very negative approach to prove (...) the miracle of the Qur’ān, which is value free. That negative value free mentality which is related to the status of prophet of Islam will be exposed and it will detail how the status of prophet of Islam was abated so badly to prove the science from the Qur’ān. To counter this negative narrative and to reveal the true status of prophet of Islam, arguments will be presented from the Qur’ān and Ḥadīth which are incontrovertible. Let it be known than, this analysis is not general but particular. However, it will be a novel critique to re-visit this concept. (shrink)

This chapter is divided into three sections dealing with pharmacology, optics, and music, and emphasizes the issues of methodology, especially how al-Kindī thinks mathematics is used in science. In pharmacology, al-Kindī gives an arithmetical theory for calculating the effects of compound drugs. In optics, he expands on ideas inherited from Ptolemy to provide a novel theory of light and color. In music, he puts forward an ambitious theory, influenced by Pythagoreanism, which holds that all things are interconnected by relations (...) of harmony. (shrink)

Hegel's philosophy of literature, in the Aesthetics and other texts, gives no extended discussion of the novel. Hegel's predecessor Friedrich Schlegel had produced a philosophy of literature with a central position for the novel. Schlegel's discussion of the novel is based on a view of Irony which allows the novel to be the fusion of poetry and philosophy. Hegel retained a place for art, including poetry, below that of philosophy. The Ironic conception of the novel has themes, which also appear (...) in Hegel, of the unity of opposites. However, for Hegel Irony does not allow the unity of artistic form and does not allow art to be guided by law and science. Therefore Hegel's philosophy of literature owes much to Schlegel but needs to attack Irony and minimise the role of the novel. Irony is criticised as a purely negative position of a 'beautiful soul', which cannot act and in its absolutely subjective resistance to evil in the world becomes evil itself. Hegel gives great importance to Epic which foreshadows the emergence of philosophy in its unity, but it is a unity based on conflicting individuality and lawlessness. In the modern world Heroic lawlessness can only be approached as nostalgia, the novel cannot integrate individuality and law, only religion and philosophy above aesthetics, including the novel. (shrink)

Transformation of the sparrow and the butterfly -- Meeting the gods of poverty in a dream -- The greatest joys of the cicada and its cast-off shell -- The owl's understanding -- The centipede questions the snake -- The toad's way of the gods -- The mysterious technique of the cat -- Afterword by William Scott Wilson.

Health disparities education is an integral and required part of medical professional training, and yet existing curricula often fail to effectively denaturalize injustice or empower learners to advocate for change. We discuss a novel collaborative intervention that weds the health humanities to the field of health equity. We draw from the health humanities an intentional focus retraining provider imaginations by centering patient narratives; from the field of health equity, we draw the linkage between stigmatized social identities and health disparities. We (...) describe a longitudinal health equity curriculum for the Hospice and Palliative Medicine fellowship in Memphis, Tennessee, to give trainees exposure to the concept of structural violence and how it affects clinical care. The curriculum was developed in partnership with humanities and social sciences faculty who staff a Health Equity academic program at a small liberal arts college in Memphis. This curriculum has been implemented for the past four years in support of 22 hospice and palliative medicine fellows. Group debriefs and a mixed methods survey have revealed widespread and lasting impact towards understanding health equity concepts, enhanced communication and treatment of patients, and empowerment to address the broader needs and policies affecting patients and the communities in which they live. Ultimately, we model an educational initiative that integrates equity across the full scope of healthcare practice and equips learners with skills for sustaining compassionate practices, focusing on equity-oriented, person-centered care across the full scope of healthcare practice. (shrink)

From infancy, we recognize that labels denote category membership and help us to identify the critical features that objects within a category share. Labels not only reflect how we categorize, but also allow us to communicate and share categories with others. Given the special status of labels as markers of category membership, do novel labels (i.e., non‐words) affect the way in which adults select dimensions for categorization in unsupervised settings? Additionally, is the purpose of this effect primarily coordinative (i.e., do (...) labels promote shared understanding of how we categorize objects)? To address this, we conducted two experiments in which participants individually categorized images of mountains with or without novel labels, and with or without a goal of coordination, within a non‐communicative paradigm. People who sorted items with novel labels had more similar categories than people who sorted without labels only when they were told that their categories should make sense to other people, and not otherwise. We argue that sorters' goals determine whether novel labels promote the development of socially coherent categories. (shrink)

Das Problem, unter welchen Bedingungen eine Hypothese oder Theorienmodifikation als methodologisch akzeptabel gilt, wird in der wissenschaftstheoretischen Tradition als die Frage des Ad-Hoc-Charakters von Hypothesen diskutiert. Das gleichartige Problem tritt aber auch in Lakatos' Methodologie wissenschaftlicher Forschungsprogramme auf, welche von methodologisch zulässigen Theorienänderungen die Vorhersage 'neuer Tatsachen' verlangt. Über diesen Begriff der neuen Tatsache und damit der Adäquatheitsbedingungen für wissenschaftliche Erklärungen hat sich eine weitgefächerte Debatte entsponnen. In diesem Papier wird der Versuch unternommen, die Forderung der unabhängigen Testbarkeit einer Hypothese, (...) welche im Rahmen der Diskussion des Ad-hoc-Charakters von Hypothesen eine wichtige Rolle spielt, auch für die Frage der Spezifizierung von 'neuen Tatsachen' fruchtbar zu machen. Ich argumentiere zugunsten der Bedingung, daß eine Hypothese als methodologisch akzeptabel gelten sollte, wenn sie zumindest zwei unabhängige Tatsachen erklärt. Ein derartiger Ansatz verlangt die Kennzeichnung dessen, was als 'eine Tatsache' zu gelten hat. Die Schwierigkeit einer derartigen Kennzeichnung ist ein notorisches Problem jedes Kriteriums, das auf unabhängige Testbarkeit zielt. Eine Klärung dieses Problems wird über das Konzept der empirischen Generalisierung versucht. Als 'eine Tatsache' im methodologischen Sinne gilt demnach ein gesetzmäßiger Zusammenhang zwischen zwei Meßgrößen. Dies erlaubt weiterführend eine Klärung des Problems, was methodologisch als 'ein Experiment' zu werten ist, d. h. was als Reproduktion desselben und was als andersartiges Experiment gelten soll. Mit Hilfe dieser Klärungen wird unter anderem der Ad-hoc-Charakter der Lorentzschen Kontraktionshypothese sowie das Problem der Gleich- oder Verschiedenartigkeit von Michelson-Morley- und Kennedy-Thorndike-Experiment untersucht. (shrink)