Abstract

It is easy to say that the analysis by Kendler and Schaffner of the status of the dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia (DHS) is, at the very least, a scholarly read. It includes an exhaustive review of the DHS literature accompanied by a demanding critique. The authors' bar for hypothesis verification is high, and their conclusion is negative—that scientific support is insufficient to retain the hypothesis as such. They proceed to evaluate the reasons they see for both (1) the extensive testing of the hypothesis extending over decades and (2) the failure of the field to falsify in a timely fashion. In a very interesting section, they review philosophical positions about how and in what context scientific advances ..