Bootstrap Confirmation Made Quantitative

Glymour’s theory of bootstrap confirmation is a purely qualitative account of confirmation; it allows us to say that the evidence confirms a given theory, but not that it confirms the theory to a certain degree. The present paper extends Glymour’s theory to a quantitative account and investigates the resulting theory in some detail. It also considers the question how bootstrap confirmation relates to justification.     

Testing Inference To The Best Explanation

Inference to the Best Explanation has become the subject of a livelydebate in the philosophy of science. Scientific realists maintain, while scientificantirealists deny, that it is a compelling rule of inference. It seems that anyattempt to settle this debate empirically must beg the question against theantirealist. The present paper argues that this impression is misleading. A methodis described that, by combining Glymour's theory of bootstrapping and Hacking'sarguments from microscopy, allows us to test IBE without begging any antirealistissues.     

A Davidsonian argument against incommensurability

The writings of Kuhn and Feyerabend on incommensurability challenged the idea that science progresses towards the truth. Davidson famously criticized the notion of incommensurability, arguing that it is incoherent. Davidson's argument was in turn criticized by Kuhn and others. This article argues that, although at least some of the objections raised against Davidson's argument are formally correct, they do it very little harm. What remains of the argument once the objections have been taken account of is still quite damaging to the thesis that formerly endorsed scientific theories are incommensurable with those of today's science.     

Oxidative stress in university students during examinations

Mental stress in psychiatric disease and in daily life contributes to oxidative stress in the body. In this study we investigated a connection between possible psychological stress caused by university undergraduate examinations and oxidative stress experienced by our test subjects. Some parameters of oxidative stress (single strand breaks of DNA in lymphocytes, sensitivity to lipid oxidation and antioxidant status) were studied in medical students on the day of the examination (stress condition) and compared with the same parameters obtained from the same students during the term between two examination periods (non-stress condition). The results show that in the stress condition oxidative damage to DNA and sensitivity to lipid oxidation were significantly increased (p<0.05) when compared with the same parameters in "non-stress" conditions. A significant decrease in plasma antioxidant activity (p<0.05) in students that were under stress was observed. These results suggest that during university examinations students are under increased oxidative stress.     

Haptics and projection: drawings by Tracy, a blind adult

Outline drawings in a raised form were made by a blind woman, Tracy, who has been blind from very early in life. Highly practiced in drawing, she reports she is largely self-taught. To invoke matters of projection, she was asked to represent an object with faces slanting away from the observer, a fixed array from different vantage points, and sets of objects in depth. In particular, she drew a cube balanced on a vertex, three objects from different vantage points, receding rows of glasses, and a house. Her drawings included features of parallel and polar projection. Her use of these features may reflect an appreciation of direction from a vantage point, which observers deal with via haptics in everyday tasks. Tracy may have advanced drawing-development skills common to the blind and the sighted.