Según la gnoseología clásica, toda ciencia se ordena de manera jerárquica en principios primeros y evidentes a partir de los cuales se demuestran las demás proposiciones, más complejas y menos generales, siguiendo ciertas reglas. Para Pascal, la geometría muestra de la manera más perfecta el método que se debe seguir en las ciencias, porque está basada solamente en cosas claras y evidentes por la luz natural. Sin embargo, el método perfecto –que consiste en definir todos los términos y demostrar todas (...) las proposiciones– sobrepasa incluso a la geometría. Pero, en aquello que no podemos llegar a conocer, la naturaleza sostiene nuestro razonamiento. Pascal está haciendo referencia aquí a los principios comunes a todo hombre, que se conocen e intuyen con el corazón, y que se constituyen también en el fundamento del conocimiento de las ciencias particulares. (shrink)

S'appuyant sur l'analyse philosophique, la recherche historique, l'évolution des pratiques médicales, cet ouvrage met en lumière les articulations entre les idées scientifiques du médecin et idéologue Pierre Jean Georges Cabanis (1757-1808), son analyse des rapports sociaux et sa philosophie de la connaissance.

SummaryThis article focuses on the analysis of sensibility in the works of three major late eighteenth-century philosophers: Smith, Cabanis and the young Wilhelm von Humboldt. It analyses to what extent Smith's concept of sympathy influenced Cabanis in France and Humboldt in Germany. It argues that modern anthropology, based on a specific theory of sensibility, assumes a strong connection between knowledge acquisition and life in society. This article reveals the strong links between the three authors which were made possible precisely because (...) of their common philosophical background. It proves, for the first time, that Humboldt had access to Condillac's ideas before 1798, since in an early work on the state, the former makes numerous borrowings from speeches Cabanis wrote for Mirabeau, which were in turn strongly influenced by Condillac. (shrink)

Dès leur parution, les Rapports ont été accueillis comme une œuvre majeure par les médecins, la presse républicaine et les journalistes antirévolutionnaires. Cette étude examine les débats à l’œuvre dans les journaux. Le matérialisme, la portée scientifique et politique de ce livre en sont les trois axes principaux. Elle met en lumière un aspect peu connu : la réputation de grand écrivain de Cabanis.

Benzodiazepines and antidepressants have been shown to change responses to unfairness; however, the effects of their combined use on unfairness evaluation are unknown. This study examines the effects of concomitant benzodiazepines and antidepressants long-term use on the evaluation of fair and unfair offers. To analyze behavioral changes on responses to unfairness, we compared the performance of medicated participants and healthy controls in the Ultimatum Game, both in the proposer and in the respondent role. The results showed that long-term psychotropic users (...) had the worse economic strategy by accepting less offers than control subjects. However, in the proposer role, the unfair offers made by participants were similar between groups. The present results suggest that long-term use of psychotropic medication, specifically the combination of benzodiazepines and antidepressants, may increase the sensitivity to unfairness, resulting in higher rejection rates in conditions where this strategy is the most disadvantageous. (shrink)

Gauge invariance of a manifestly covariant relativistic quantum theory with evolution according to an invariant time τ implies the existence of five gauge compensation fields, which we shall call pre-Maxwell fields. A Lagrangian which generates the equations of motion for the matter field (coinciding with the Schrödinger type quantum evolution equation) as well as equations, on a five-dimensional manifold, for the gauge fields, is written. It is shown that τ integration of the equations for the pre-Maxwell fields results in the (...) usual Maxwell equations with conserved current source. The analog of the O (3, 1) symmetry of the usual Maxwell theory is found to be O (3, 2) or O (4, 1), depending on the space-time Fourier spectrum of the field. We argue that the structure that is relevant to the description of radiation in interaction with matter evolving in a timelike sense is that of O (3, 2). The noncovariant form of the field equations is given; there are two fields of electric type and one (divergenceless) magnetic type field. The Noether currents are studied, and some remarks are made on second quantization. (shrink)

L’ambition de ce dossier est à la fois d’affirmer l’importance de la réception de l’œuvre de Pierre Jean Georges Cabanis durant toute la première moitié du XIXe siècle, et de montrer que, tant dans le domaine philosophique que médical, psychophysiologique plus précisément, la lecture des Rapports du physique et du moral de l’homme a été déterminante pour la construction d’une nouvelle science de l’homme. L’importance de cette réception n’est en soi guère contestable. Rappelons en guise d’illu...

O aumento da participação feminina no mercado de trabalho formal e informal, decorrente dos movimentos feministas, começou a ameaçar em larga escala um dos pilares da desigualdade, o provimento econômico e autonomia sobre a vida das mulheres, dessa forma, as estruturas sociais se reorganizam para reproduzir a lógica de poder opressora. Por meio de ambientes organizacionais, diversos e inclusivos, especialmente no que se refere a gênero, as mulheres poderão experienciar a valorização social, a influência no poder de decisão, o pertencimento (...) e engajamento no grupo de trabalho, a autenticidade e reconhecimento de diversidade (sentimento de interação justa), e essa experiência impactará a vida profissional e concomitantemente a pessoal/privada. O objetivo principal é mapear como é abordado a violência contra a mulher no ambiente de trabalho na literatura nacional. O método utilizado será a revisão de literatura integrativa, definida como o compêndio de literatura existente objetivando a sumarização e discussão de um corpo de conhecimento relacionado ao tema. Em suma, os resultados desta revisão integrativa reforçam a necessidade de ação conjunta por parte da comunidade para combater a violência contra a mulher no ambiente de trabalho, pois ao reconhecer que se trata de um problema social que afeta a sociedade como um todo, é possível fortalecer os laços de solidariedade e incentivar ações coletivas para estabelecer um ambiente de trabalho seguro e inclusivo. (shrink)

In recent years, the changing landscape for the conduct and assessment of research and of researchers has increased scrutiny of the reward systems of science. In this context, correcting the research record, including retractions, has gained attention and space in the publication system. One question is the possible influence of retractions on the careers of scientists. It might be assessed, for example, through citation patterns or productivity rates for authors who have had one or more retractions. This is an emerging (...) issue today, with growing discussions in the research community about impact. We have explored the influence of retractions on grant review criteria. Here, we present results of a qualitative study exploring the views of a group of six representatives of funding agencies from different countries and of a follow-up survey of 224 reviewers in the US. These reviewers have served on panels for the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and/or a few other agencies. We collected their perceptions about the influence of self-correction of the literature and of retractions on grant decisions. Our results suggest that correcting the research record, for honest error or misconduct, is perceived as an important mechanism to strengthen the reliability of science, among most respondents. However, retractions and self-correcting the literature at large are not factors influencing grant review, and dealing with retractions in reviewing grants is an open question for funders. (shrink)

dra. aída hernández castillo has scholars a reason to worry in her Coss Dialogue lecture "Against Discursive Colonialism: Intercultural Dialogues as a Path to Decolonizing Feminist Anthropology." My response philosophically feels around for—and happily fails to find—any boundaries enclosing Hernández Castillo's self-described aim to "decolonize" her feminism. It begins with a story.In an interview with Krista Tippett, Bishop Desmond Tutu recounted an experience that perfectly illustrated a colonized mind. While onboard a flight from Lagos to Jos in Nigeria, Tutu proudly (...) noticed that both of the pilots were black. But as soon as the plane hit turbulence, his years of internalized anti-black... (shrink)

In our paper we aim at reflecting upon the extent to which educational theory may be used as a framework in the analysis of policy documents. As policy texts are ‘heteroglossic in character’ (Lingard and Ozga, in The Routledge Falmer reader in education policy and politics, Routledge, London and New York, 2007 , p. 2) and create “circumstances in which the range of options available in deciding what to do are narrowed or changed” (Ball in, Education policy and social class: (...) The selected works of Stephen J Ball, Routledge, London and New York, 2006 , p. 46), they need to be theoretically tackled in their underlying assumptions and implications. This proposal draws on an analysis of two sets of documents of the European Union: texts produced between 2000 and 2006, underlying the European Union programmes; and texts produced by a working group focusing on the key competences of Lifelong Learning (2003–2006). Initially, the framework for the analysis of different documents was grounded on the existing research in the field of educational policy. Now we attempt a secondary analysis of the collected data by transposing the borders of this particular and highly prolific field. We argue that what is outside the texts may reshape what is inside the texts. Educational theory allows us to define some conceptual tools in order to question the documents as political apparatus which open and constrain possibilities. Therefore, we will use educational theory as an arena where different matters, perspectives and possibilities may be explored and assembled. We have engaged in a conversation with both the data and some theoretical approaches. Central to this conversation are the concepts of “ignorant schoolmaster” (Rancière, in The ignorant schoolmaster five lessons in intellectual emancipation, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1991 ), “learning contexts” (Edwards, in Rethinking contexts for learning and teaching, Routledge, Oxon and New York, 2009a , b ), and “experience” (Larrosa, in Revista Brasileira de Educação, 19:20–28, 2002 ). (shrink)

Background: Issues concerning legislation and regulation with respect to the role of nurses in euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide gave the Minister for Health reason to commission a study of the role of nurses in medical end-of-life decisions in hospitals, home care and nursing homes.Aim: This paper reports the findings of a study of the role of nurses in euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, conducted as part of a study of the role of nurses in medical end-of-life decisions. The findings for hospitals, (...) home care and nursing homes are described and compared.Method: A questionnaire was sent to 1509 nurses, employed in 73 hospitals, 55 home care organisations and 63 nursing homes. 1179 responses were suitable for analysis. The questionnaire was pilot-tested among 106 nurses, with a response rate of 85%.Results: In 37.0% of cases, the nurse was the first person with whom patients discussed their request for euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide. Consultation between physicians and nurses during the decision-making process took place quite often in hospitals and nursing homes and less frequently in home care situations . In some cases , nurses administered the euthanatics.Conclusions: The results show substantial differences between the intramural sector and the extramural sector , which are probably linked to the organisational structure of the institutions. Consultation between physicians and nurses during the decision-making process needs improvement, particularly in home care. Some nurses had administered euthanatics, although this task is by law exclusively reserved to physicians. (shrink)

We present a one per cent measurement of the cosmic distance scale from the detections of the baryon acoustic oscillations in the clustering of galaxies from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey, which is part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III. Our results come from the Data Release 11 sample, containing nearly one million galaxies and covering approximately 8500 square degrees and the redshift range 0.2 < z < 0.7. We also compare these results with those from the publicly released (...) DR9 and DR10 samples. Assuming a concordance Λ cold dark matter cosmological model, the DR11 sample covers a volume of 13 Gpc3 and is the largest region of the Universe ever surveyed at this density. We measure the correlation function and power spectrum, including density-field reconstruction of the BAO feature. The acoustic features are detected at a significance of over 7σ in both the correlation function and power spectrum. Fitting for the position of the acoustic features measures the distance relative to the sound horizon at the drag epoch, rd, which has a value of rd,fid = 149.28 Mpc in our fiducial cosmology. We find DV = at z = 0.32 and DV = at z = 0.57. At 1.0 per cent, this latter measure is the most precise distance constraint ever obtained from a galaxy survey. Separating the clustering along and transverse to the line of sight yields measurements at z = 0.57 of DA = and H =. Our measurements of the distance scale are in good agreement with previous BAO measurements and with the predictions from cosmic microwave background data for a spatially flat CDM model with a cosmological constant. © 2014 The Author Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. (shrink)

The central hypothesis of the collaboration between Language and Computing (L&C) and the Institute for Formal Ontology and Medical Information Science (IFOMIS) is that the methodology and conceptual rigor of a philosophically inspired formal ontology greatly benefits application ontologies. To this end r®, L&C’s ontology, which is designed to integrate and reason across various external databases simultaneously, has been submitted to the conceptual demands of IFOMIS’s Basic Formal Ontology (BFO). With this project we aim to move beyond the level of (...) controlled vocabularies to yield an ontology with the ability to support reasoning applications. Our general procedure has been the implementation of a meta-ontological definition space in which the definitions of all the concepts and relations in LinKBase® are standardized in a framework of first-order logic. In this paper we describe how this standardization has already led to an improvement in the LinKBase® structure that allows for a greater degree of internal coherence than ever before possible. We then show the use of this philosophical standardization for the purpose of mapping external databases to one another, using LinKBase® as translation hub, with a greater degree of success than possible hitherto. We demonstrate how this offers a genuine advance over other application ontologies that have not submitted themselves to the demands of philosophical scrutiny. LinKBase® is one of the world’s largest applications-oriented medical domain ontologies, and BFO is one of the world’s first philosophically driven reference ontologies. The collaboration of the two thus initiates a new phase in the quest to solve the so-called “Tower of Babel”. (shrink)

Antecedentes. En el 2007 se legalizó el aborto en la Ciudad de México, acusando una elevada mortalidad materna por aborto.Objetivo. Analizar los datos generales de la mortalidad materna y por aborto en el país y en la capital.Metodología. Estudio retrospectivo, con datos obtenidos del INEGI. Cálculo de la razón de mortalidad materna general y por aborto. Análisis de correlación de Pearson y regresión lineal de los resultados. Análisis de tendencias de incremento y decremento anual. Desglose de muertes maternas.Resultado. Regresión lineal (...) sobre la RMM nacional (R² = 0.87) con tendencia a la baja; RMM por aborto nacional (R² = 0.49) con débil tendencia hacia la baja; RMM por aborto en la Ciudad de México (R² = 0.001) no muestra una tendencia hacia la baja.Conclusión. La despenalización del aborto en la Ciudad de México no mostró tener un impacto en la reducción de muertes maternas por aborto. El aborto provocado ocupa el 12° lugar de las muertes maternas en México. (shrink)

Yemeni writer Ahmed Qāsim al-Arīqī, in addition to his profession as a pharmacist, is a writer who has made a name for himself in the country's literary field, especially in the last fifteen years. A prolific writer, al-Arīqī is the author of poetry collections as well as stories and novels that emphasise awareness of the traditional issues of the Yemeni people. He has published "Maḳāmāt al-'Arīḳī" (2006), "Ġalṭṭetu Ḳalem" (2012), "Qurāt al-S̱-S̱elj" (2017), "Ta'riyya" (2018), "Zurbet al-Yumnā" (2018), "Da'wat al-Ḥuḳūl" (2019), (...) "Zuhr al-Ġarām" and "Sīret al-Kūbī" (2022). His novel "Yawma Māta al-Shaytan" (The Day Satan Died) was published electronically by Hindāwī Publishing House in 2022. The novel, which is approximately 120 pages, is written in six chapters. There are eleven passages in the first and fourth chapters, thirteen in the second and sixth chapters, twelve in the third chapter, and eight in the fifth chapter. The novel is about the adventures of a member of the army named Marwan Naji, who was wounded in the war between the Houthi militia and the Yemeni army, and after nine months in a coma, opens his eyes in a perfect world dominated by biological and technological advances. Symbolising the treatment of selfishness and various narcissisms with advanced vaccines through the death of Satan, the author describes Marwan's adventures in his world, which he sometimes describes as the realm of the jinn, in a very simple language, while not failing to criticise reality in its various political, social and religious dimensions. In fact, Marwan's world of imagination and fantasy is the main story of the novel, but not the only one. The author also includes the stories of family members in Marwan's world of turmoil, destruction, massacre, war and victory, giving the reader the opportunity to compare both worlds. While his mother Gusoun, his wife Hamide and his daughter Fatma, who later got engaged in time after being widowed, are the female characters of his real world, Professor Mari and Mariana, one of his seven wives, are the other important characters of his imaginary world. Gusûn is a devoted mother who does not leave the bedside of her comatose son, prays for him day and night and tries to do everything she can for his recovery. Gusûn, who is listened to at home to a certain extent, scolds her grandchildren to prevent the breakup of her son's home because of inheritance, defends that the existing wealth still belongs to her son and reminds them that she will not hesitate to spend money for his recovery. Gusûn's daughter-in-law Hamide also takes care of her husband, who shows no signs of recovery. Hamide, who is not as patient as her mother-in-law, is also a jealous woman. On the other hand, although both of them display false religious tendencies that have no relation with real life, Gusûn is more prone to the superstitious approaches put forward and adopted in the name of religion. Fatma is also a widow who, although she has the will to take care of her children and live her life alone, has been engaged for a long time to her uncle's son Münir, who, like her, took part in anti-regime demonstrations and whose love she believes in. Fatma, who is more conscious than her grandmother and mother, is not alien to the issues that society complains about and often participates in women's movements organised against the government. Professor Mari, one of the two important characters belonging to Marwan's imaginary world, is a psychologist and the chief physician of a large hospital who treats jealousy, anger, lying and selfishness, which are considered dangerous viruses, with vaccines developed by scientists. Professor Mari, who is personally involved in Marwan's treatment, also chairs the committee that records his memory and projects all his memories on a giant screen. Mariana, on the other hand, monitors Marwan's behaviour and thoughts through a biological chip to control the effect of the vaccines given to him, criticises him through the tragic images projected on the screen and provides information that will facilitate his adaptation to his new world. In the article, in which the author's main published works are briefly introduced along with a broad summary of the novel, the social messages that an author, who is not indifferent to the realities of the geography he lives in, tries to give directly and indirectly with a language far from locality, are tried to be determined through the mentioned female characters. It is seen that the desire to become a single nation by making; love, brotherhood, friendship and peace dominant lies behind the author's novelisation of the dream of an ideal world symbolised by the death of Satan. (shrink)

Georg Lukács (1885-1971) was one of the most original Marxist philosophers and literary critics of the twentieth century. His work was a major influence on what we now know as critical theory. Almost fifty years after his death, Lukács's legacy has come under attack by right-wing extremists in his native Hungary. Despite efforts to erase his memory, Lukács remains a philosophical gadfly. In Confronting Reification, an international team of fourteen scholars explicate, reassess, and apply one of Lukács's most significant philosophical (...) contributions, his theory of reification. Based on papers presented at the 2017 Legacy of Georg Lukács conference held in Budapest, the essays in this volume demonstrate the vitality of Lukács's thought and its relevance. Contributors include: Rüdiger Dannemann, Frank Engster, Andrew Feenberg, Joseph Grim Feinberg, Andraž Jež, Christian Lotz, Csaba Olay, Tom Rockmore, Gregory R. Smulewicz-Zucker, Mariana Teixeira, Michael J. Thompson, Tivadar Vervoort, Richard Westerman, and Sean Winkler. (shrink)

I defend Kant’s definition of analyticity in terms of concept “containment”, which has engendered widespread scepticism. Kant deployed a clear, technical notion of containment based on ideas standard within traditional logic, notably genus/species hierarchies formed via logical division. Kant’s analytic/synthetic distinction thereby undermines the logico-metaphysical system of Christian Wolff, showing that the Wolffian paradigm lacks the expressive power even to represent essential knowledge, including elementary mathematics, and so cannot provide an adequate system of philosophy. The results clarify the extent to (...) which analyticity sensu Kant can illuminate the problem of a priori knowledge generally. (shrink)

This essay explores the role of informal logicand its application in the context of currentdebates regarding evidence-based medicine. This aim is achieved through a discussion ofthe goals and objectives of evidence-basedmedicine and a review of the criticisms raisedagainst evidence-based medicine. Thecontributions to informal logic by StephenToulmin and Douglas Walton are explicated andtheir relevance for evidence-based medicine isdiscussed in relation to a common clinicalscenario: hypertension management. This essayconcludes with a discussion on the relationshipbetween clinical reasoning, rationality, andevidence. It is argued that (...) informal logic hasthe virtue of bringing explicitness to the roleof evidence in clinical reasoning, and bringssensitivity to understanding the role ofdialogical context in the need for evidence inclinical decision making. (shrink)

this article is based on a paper that I presented during the annual meeting of the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy, as a keynote speaker in the Coss Dialogue sessions. I was pleasantly surprised to hear that most participants of SAAP use the term "American" in its continental, rather than in the US-centric sense. I am glad that many of the philosophers of this community of knowledge have opened their dialogues to the voices and experiences south of the (...) Río Bravo. We are living during very difficult times in which cultures and practices of violence, as well as aggressive exclusion and intolerance, are affecting our communities on both sides of the border. In this context of multiple... (shrink)

There has been much discussion about how to obtain legitimacy at macro-level priority setting in health care by use of fair procedures, but how should we consider priority setting by individual clinicians or health workers at the micro-level? Despite the fact that just health care totally hinges upon their decisions, surprisingly little attention seems being paid to the legitimacy of these decisions. This paper addresses the following question: what are the conditions that have to be met in order to ensure (...) that individual claims on health care are well aligned with an overall concept of just health care? Drawing upon a distinction between individual and aggregated needs, I argue that even though we assume the legitimacy of macro-level guidelines, this legitimacy is not directly transferable to decisions at micro-level simply by adherence to the guidelines’ recommendation. Further, I argue that individual claims are subject to the formal principle of equality and the demands of vertical and horizontal equity in a way that gives context- and patient-related equity concerns precedence over equity concerns captured at the macro-level. I conclude that if we aim to achieve just health care, we need to develop a complementary framework for legitimising individual judgment of patients’ claims on health care resources. Moreover, I suggest the basic structure of such a framework. (shrink)

The distinction between the agent-relative and the agent-neutral plays a prominent role in recent attempts to taxonomize normative theories. Its importance extends to most areas in practical philosophy, though. Despite its popularity, the distinction remains difficult to get a good grip on. In part this has to do with the fact that there is no consensus concerning the sort of objects to which we should apply the distinction. Thomas Nagel distinguishes between agent-neutral and agent-relative values, reasons, and principles; Derek Parfit (...) focuses on normative theories (and the aims they provide to agents), David McNaughton and Piers Rawling focus on rules and reasons, Skorupski on predicates, and there are other suggestions too. Some writers suspect that we fundamentally talk about one and the same distinction. This work is about practical reasons for action rather than theoretical reasons for belief. Moreover, focus is on whether reasons do or do not essentially refer to particular agents. A challenge that undermines the dichotomy in this sense is posed. After having rejected different attempts to defend the distinction, it is argued that there is a possible defence that sets out from Jonathan Dancy’s recent distinction between enablers and favourers. (shrink)

Scholars and practitioners across domains are increasingly concerned with algorithmic transparency and opacity, interrogating the values and assumptions embedded in automated, black-boxed systems, particularly in user-generated content platforms. I report from an ethnography of infrastructure in Wikipedia to discuss an often understudied aspect of this topic: the local, contextual, learned expertise involved in participating in a highly automated social–technical environment. Today, the organizational culture of Wikipedia is deeply intertwined with various data-driven algorithmic systems, which Wikipedians rely on to help manage (...) and govern the “anyone can edit” encyclopedia at a massive scale. These bots, scripts, tools, plugins, and dashboards make Wikipedia more efficient for those who know how to work with them, but like all organizational culture, newcomers must learn them if they want to fully participate. I illustrate how cultural and organizational expertise is enacted around algorithmic agents by discussing two autoethnographic vignettes, which relate my personal experience as a veteran in Wikipedia. I present thick descriptions of how governance and gatekeeping practices are articulated through and in alignment with these automated infrastructures. Over the past 15 years, Wikipedian veterans and administrators have made specific decisions to support administrative and editorial workflows with automation in particular ways and not others. I use these cases of Wikipedia’s bot-supported bureaucracy to discuss several issues in the fields of critical algorithms studies; critical data studies; and fairness, accountability, and transparency in machine learning—most principally arguing that scholarship and practice must go beyond trying to “open up the black box” of such systems and also examine sociocultural processes like newcomer socialization. (shrink)

The idea of freedom plays a key role in Plato's moral and political thought. In the Republic justice is shown to be beneficial because the just man alone is truly free. There are parallels here with modern discussions of freedom. The Laws argues that to be free a city must avoid the extremes of liberty and of authoritarianism. The legislator should rely on persuasion, not force, so that people willingly obey his laws. The underlying idea is that we are free (...) if we willingly follow the demands of reason rather than being coerced by external forces or by unruly desires. (shrink)

The complex societal challenges of the twenty-first Century require scientific researchers and academically educated professionals capable of conducting scientific research in complex problem contexts. Our central claim is that educational approaches inspired by a traditional empiricist epistemology insufficiently foster the required deep conceptual understanding and higher-order thinking skills necessary for epistemic tasks in scientific research. Conversely, we argue that constructivist epistemologies provide better guidance to educational approaches to promote research skills. We also argue that teachers adopting a constructivist learning theory (...) do not necessarily embrace a constructivist epistemology. On the contrary, in educational practice, novel educational approaches that adopt constructivist learning theories often maintain traditional empiricist epistemologies. Philosophers of science can help develop educational designs focused on learning to conduct scientific research, combining constructivist learning theory with constructivist epistemology. We illustrate this by an example from a bachelor’s program in Biomedical Engineering, where we introduce conceptual models and modeling as an alternative to the traditional focus on hypothesis testing in conducting scientific research. This educational approach includes the so-called B&K method for constructing scientific models to scaffold teaching and learning conceptual modeling. (shrink)

Following the 1980 US Supreme Court decision to allow a patent on a living organism, debate has continued on the moral issues involved in biotechnology patents of many kinds and remains a contentious issue for those opposed to the use of biotechnology in industry and agriculture. Attitudes to patenting in the life sciences, including those of the research scientists themselves, are analysed. The relevance of morality to patent law is discussed here in an international context with particular reference to the (...) law of the European Patent Convention administered by the European Patent Office (EPO). The EPO has been the principal forum for opposition to such patents and the few cases under dispute in the EPO are reviewed, including patents for the onco-mouse, human relaxin gene, and the PGS herbicidally resistant plant (gmo). Morality provisions in the European Parliament and Council Directive 98/44/EC are also summarised. (shrink)

The debate about the relative epistemic weights carried in favour of a theory by predictions of new phenomena as opposed to accommodations of already known phenomena has a long history. We readdress the issue through a detailed re-examination of a particular historical case that has often been discussed in connection with it-that of Mendeleev and the prediction by his periodic law of the three 'new' elements, gallium, scandium and germanium. We find little support for the standard story that these predictive (...) successes were outstandingly important in the success of Mendeleev's scheme. Accommodations played an equal role-notably that of argon, the first of the 'noble gases' to be discovered; and the methodological situation in this chemical example turns out to be in interesting ways different from that in other cases-invariably from physics-that have been discussed in this connection. The historical episode when accurately analysed provides support for a different account of the relative weight of prediction and accommodation-one that is further articulated here. (shrink)