While many aspects of Shapin's historical thesis are accepted, this paper raises objections to specific parts of his historical account, and also to the historiographical assumptions underlying his sociological programme. In particular, Shapin's claim to have explained the Edinburgh phrenology debate in social terms is analysed and rejected.

Berkeley's "new theory of vision" and, In particular, His sensationalist solution to the problem of judging distance and magnitude were discussed by many eighteenth-Century authors who faced a variety of problem situations. More specifically, Berkeley's theory fed into the debate over whether the phenomena of vision were susceptible to mathematical analysis or were experientially determined. In this paper a variety of responses to berkeley are examined, Concluding with thomas reid's attempt to distinguish physical optics (which can be analyzed geometrically) from (...) the psychology of vision (in which experience plays a major role). (shrink)

Mathematical modeling is a convenient way for characterization of complex ecosystems. This approach was applied to study the dynamics of zooplankton in Lake Sevan (Armenia) at different stages of anthropogenic eutrophication with the use of a novel method called discrete modeling of dynamical systems with feedback (DMDS). Simulation demonstrated that the application of this method helps in characterization of inter- and intra-component relationships in a natural ecosystem. This method describes all possible pairwise inter-component relationships like “plus–plus,” “minus–minus,” “plus–minus,” “plus–zero,” “minus–zero,” (...) and “zero–zero” that occur in most ecosystems. Based on the results, a working hypothesis was formulated. It was found that the sensitivity to weak external influence in zooplanktons was the greatest during the mid period of eutrophication in Lake Sevan, whereas in the final stages of eutrophication, an outbreak in the biomass production of cyanobacteria was evident. To support this approach, a weak external disturbance in the form of magnetic storm was used to see its effect on species Daphnia longispina sevanica. A statistically significant correlation between the frequency of magnetic storms and the number of this species was revealed and an increase in the number of toxic cyanobacteria species as a consequence of eutrophication. This paper, for the first time, suggests a DMDS method, to diagnose impact of anthropogenic eutrophication on environment. (shrink)

The participants in this round table have, I see, been basing their conclusions on their personal life experience. In the present situation that is perhaps the most suitable form of expression for me too.

There is a long history to the debate of nationalism. The Indian nationalism has emerged after a long people’s movement the truth to which is often denied by a range of forces who have ideological leanings towards the ideology of Hindutwa. This paper is an attempt to revisit the historical context in which Indian nationalism has emerged and evaluate it in reference to the contemporary time. It emphasizes on the relation between the nation and the state with special reference to (...) its impact on the universities. Further, the paper suggests that in order to uphold the idea of university and nation, an inclusive and secular idea of nation has to be espoused. Lastly, it suggests that a university needs to foster a non sectarian approach and broaden its vision for an internationalist outlook. (shrink)

В монографии опубликованы статьи преподавателей, аспирантов кафедры философии ВГПУ и других вузов, посвященные актуальным проблемам философии науки, философским проблемам конкретно-научного знания.

The decline in the number of legitimate live births in England and Wales from the peak in 1964 has been partitioned into components due to changes in fertility rates, components due to changes in the composition of the population exposed to risk, and an interaction component. Fertility rates specific for age of mother at birth of child, duration of marriage, parity and age of mother at marriage were considered but in all cases it was found that the decline was not (...) as great as the change in fertility rates implied. This was due to increases in the number of births due to changes in the composition of the population exposed to risk. (shrink)

In the late 1810s and 1820s the Edinburgh phrenologists were largely concerned with trying to establish phrenology as the true science of mind. They challenged the accepted theories about the nature of mind and the brain; in turn, phrenology was attacked by the proponents of Scottish common-sense philosophy and by some medical men. The ensuing debate, which is discussed as an example of conflict between incommensurable world-views, involved a wide range of contentious theological, philosophical, scientific and methodological issues.

The state-of-art research in the field of life’s organization confronts the need to investigate a number of interacting components, their properties and conditions of sustainable behaviour within a natural system. In biology, ecology and life sciences, the performance of such stable system is usually related to homeostasis, a property of the system to actively regulate its state within a certain allowable limits. In our previous work, we proposed a deterministic model for systems’ homeostasis. The model was based on dynamical system’s (...) theory and pairwise relationships of competition, amensalism and antagonism taken from theoretical biology and ecology. However, the present paper proposes a different dimension to our previous results based on the same model. In this paper, we introduce the influence of inter-component relationships in a system, wherein the impact is characterized by direction (neutral, positive, or negative) as well as its (absolute) value, or strength. This makes the model stochastic which, in our opinion, is more consistent with real-world elements affected by various random factors. The case study includes two examples from areas of hydrobiology and medicine. The models acquired for these cases enabled us to propose a convincing explanation for corresponding phenomena identified by different types of natural systems. (shrink)