Information and computer technology has come to play an increasingly important role in medicine, to the extent that e-health has been described as a disruptive innovation or revolution in healthcare. The attention is very much focused on the technology itself, and advances that have been made in genetics and biology. This leads to the question: What is changing in medicine today concerning e-health? To what degree could these changes be characterized as a ‘revolution’? We will apply the work of Thomas (...) Kuhn, Larry Laudan, Michel Foucault and other philosophers—which offers an alternative understanding of progress and revolution in medicine to the classic discovery-oriented approach—to our analysis. Nowadays, the long-standing curative or reactive paradigm in medicine is facing a crisis due to an aging population, a significant increase in chronic diseases and the development of more expensive diagnostic tools and therapies. This promotes the evolution towards a new paradigm with an emphasis on preventive medicine. E-health constitutes an essential part of this new paradigm that seeks to solve the challenges presented by an aging population, skyrocketing costs and so forth. Our approach changes the focus from the technology itself toward the underlying paradigm shift in medicine. We will discuss the relevance of this approach by applying it to the surge in digital self-tracking through health apps and wearables: the recognition of the underlying paradigm shift leads to a more comprehensive understanding of self-tracking than a solely discovery-oriented or technology-focused view can provide. (shrink)

How do scientists approach science? Scientists, sociologists and philosophers were asked to write on this intriguing problem and to display their results at the International Congress `Einstein Meets Magritte'. The outcome of their effort can be found in this rather unique book, presenting all kinds of different views on science. Quantum mechanics is a discipline which deserves and receives special attention in this book, mainly because it is fascinating and, hence, appeals to the general public. This book not only contains (...) articles on the introductory level, it also provides new insights and bold, even provocative proposals. That way, the reader gets acquainted with `science in the making', sitting in the front row. The contributions have been written for a broad interdisciplinary audience of scholars and students. (shrink)

Francis Bacon (1561-1626) was een belangrijk Engels staatsman en invloedrijk humanistisch filosoof. Zijn publicaties liggen aan de oorsprong van onze moderne visie op het wetenschappelijk onderzoek. Toch is hij vandaag weinig bekend: in overzichtswerken komt hij nauwelijks aan bod en er verschijnt relatief weinig over hem. Dit boek brengt Bacons ideeën opnieuw voor het volle voetlicht. Bacon schreef toegankelijke teksten: essays, manifesten voor een nieuwe wetenschap en zelfs een fictief verhaal over een ideale kennismaatschappij. Zijn stijl was helder en vaak (...) aforistisch, met bondige en sprankelende zinnen die we vandaag zonder dralen zouden retweeten. Dit eigenzinnige boek bespreekt de belangrijkste juridische, filosofische en wetenschapsethische inzichten van Bacon, verweven met diens intrigerende levenswandel. Zijn uitspraken zijn door de auteur gemoderniseerd en voorgesteld als tweets. Bacons beschouwingen zouden ook vandaag wel eens het verschil kunnen maken in de wetenschappelijke wereld die stilaan in het slop raakt door de vermarkting van de universiteit. (shrink)

In the last two decades Information and Computer Technology has come to play an increasingly important role in medicine and health care. Many medical practitioners and scholars wonder: will e-health cause a paradigm shift in health care? To answer this question we provide a philosophical analysis of the concept of the 'paradigm shift' through the work of Michel Foucault, Thomas Kuhn and Larry Laudan. Their work offers key insights to a comprehensive understanding of major evolutions in medicine. Nowadays the long-standing (...) curative paradigm in medicine is facing important challenges due to an aging population, a significant increase in chronic diseases and the development of more expensive diagnostic tools and therapies. This promotes the evolution towards a new paradigm in medicine with an emphasis on preventive, predictive and personalized care. E-health constitutes an essential part of this new paradigm that seeks to solve the challenges presented by an aging population, skyrocketing costs and so forth. On the other hand the characteristics of e-health will be strongly determined by this new paradigm. 'Will e-health cause a paradigm shift in medicine?' might not be the right question to pose. Rather, we should ask how the underlying paradigm shift, from discovery and cure to prevention and prediction, acts as a facilitator to embrace ICT in health care. This analysis is of crucial importance in understanding the impact of digital health care applications and provides a necessary framework for the emerging, dynamic system of e-health. (shrink)