Whose social values? Evaluating Canada’s ‘death of evidence’ controversy

With twentieth- and twenty-first-century philosophy of science’s unfolding acceptance of the nature of scientific inquiry being value-laden, the persistent worry has been that there are no means for legitimate negotiation of the social or non-epistemic values that enter into science. The rejection of the value-free ideal in science has thereby been coupled with the spectres of indiscriminate relativism and bias in scientific inquiry. I challenge this view in the context of recently expressed concerns regarding Canada's death of evidence controversy. The worry, raised by Stathis Psillos, is that as constructivist accounts of science demoted the previously secure status of evidence for drawing justified conclusions in science, we were left with no rational delineation between the right and wrong values for science. The implication for the death of evidence controversy is that we may have no rational grounds for claiming that the Canadian Government is wrong to interfere with scientific enterprise. But he does offer another avenue for reaching the conclusion that the wrong social values are directing the current stifling of some sectors of Canadian science. Psillos draws from standpoint epistemologies to devise a salient defence of ‘valuing evidence’ as a universalizable social value. That is, government bodies ought to enable scientific research via adequate funding as well as political non-interference. In this paper, I counter that (i) non-epistemic values can be rationally evaluated and that (ii) standpoint epistemology’s universalizable standpoint provides an inadequate framework for negotiating social values in science. Regarding (i), I draw from the evidence-based medicine debate in philosophy of medicine and from feminist empiricist investigations into the science–values relationship in order to make the argument for empirically driven value arbitration. If social values can be rationally chosen in the context of justification, then we can have grounds for charging the Canadian leadership with being ‘at war with science’. (ii) I further argue that my recommended empiricist methodology is preferable to Psillos’s search for universalizable perspectives for negotiating social values in science because the latter method permits little more than the trivial conclusion that evidence is valuable to science.     

证据顺序和证词自信度对学前末期儿童因果推理的影响

开展两个实验探究证据顺序和证词自信水平对5岁儿童因果推理的影响机制。132名和127名5岁儿童分别参与实验1和实验2。实验1发现证据顺序对儿童因果推理的影响表现为近因效应,但证词的自信水平差异不影响儿童的因果推理;实验2发现如果儿童注意到证词的自信水平信息,他们更倾向于在自信证词条件依据证词推断因果关系,证据顺序的影响力被削弱。研究结果说明证据顺序变化导致易受影响的近因效应。     

鉴定结论证据能力及证明力分析——以医疗事故鉴定结论为视角

在比较大陆法系鉴定结论与英美法系专家证言的证据能力和证明力的基础上,对我国的鉴定结论证明能力与证明力问题进行了分析论证。重点对医疗事故鉴定结论的证据能力与证明力进行了分析,结合我国实际提出了相关的立法完善建议。     

临床外伤性视神经病变过度医疗的探讨

外伤性视神经病变是一类严重损害视功能的疾病,临床治疗上普遍存在着过度治疗的问题。原因是多样的,治疗标准不统一是主要原因。依据循证医学的成果,对临床外伤性视神经病变现阶段存在的过度医疗进行分析探讨,并提出了医者针对外伤性视神经病变过度医疗应采取的措施,获得最优化的诊疗方案。     

Computer‐Based Intervention with Coaching: An Example Using the Incredible Years Program

Increases in personal computer ownership and Internet use patterns provide a potential avenue for dissemination of evidence‐based prevention and treatment interventions. The authors describe the implementation of a psychoeducational intervention (the Incredible Years parenting program, which is designed to promote behavioral change in parents and children) using a hybrid model combining computer‐ and web‐based delivery with professional intervention via phone calls, electronic messages, and home visits. The model attempted to simulate many of the parent training methods shown to be successful in the original program. The intervention was implemented with 90 Head Start families who reported elevated levels of child behavior problems. Of the 45 families offered the intervention in the final year of the project, 37 (82%) completed at least half the program and 34 (76%) completed the entire intervention using procedures refined in light of the initial year's experience. These participants reported high achievement of their self‐determined goals and were highly satisfied with the intervention. The combination of technology with professional coaching represents a potential model for adapting and disseminating evidence‐based interventions.     

Investigative psychology and law: towards collaboration by focusing on evidence and inferential reasoning

Introducing a special issue of this journal, Youngs discussed the desirability of, but problems in realising, greater collaboration between psychology and the criminal investigation and trial processes. This paper acknowledges the value of investigative psychology's potential contribution but argues that the alleged incompatibilities, between psychology and law, are based upon too narrow a conception of law and legal action. A direct approach, with considerable potential for productive, principled, and practical research, already exists. It involves focusing on the evidence, assessing it along each of its three credentials, and identifying the nature of the inferential reasoning involved. This paper identifies a number of ways in which practical, inter‐disciplinary and collaboration could and should be developed to ensure that the courts receive quality evidence. It also argues that more attention should be paid to abductive inferential reasoning, both by researchers and courts. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Where to look for information when planning scientific research in Psychology: Sources and channels

It is imperative that researchers invest time in the planning of their research, and it is certainly essential to stop and seek information before making any kind of decision. The present work sets out to guide psychologists in this crucial task. To this end we begin by suggesting a visit to the APA website, where a great deal of relevant information on most topics can be found, whether it pertains to new and controversial issues or to those on which there is greater consensus. In this regard we shall consider at length the meanings of the expressions “evidence-based practice” and “scientific evidence” and their inherent methodological aspects, from “scientific evidence” contributed by systematic reviews to the way it can be obtained using handbooks and guidelines of inestimable value for the successful completion of our research. All such resources will help researchers to set out their hypotheses correctly, to test them adequately and to analyze the data in the most appropriate and rigorous fashion. In this way, the quality of the research will undoubtedly improve.     

The Naked Spirit of Sport: A Framework for Revisiting the System of Bans and Justifications in the World Anti-Doping Code

As the World Anti-Doping Code is up for revision, the paper proposes a framework for reading the Code based on a relatively literal approach and an almost exclusive focus on the ‘spirit of sport’ as a key element of the Code. The author argues that this single element can contribute to revealing the underlying rationale of the Code, as it serves to justify bans of doping substances and methods, in some cases without recurring to evidence sustaining the claims made. For a substance/method to be banned, the Code requires that two out of three criteria be met: performance enhancement, health risk and the spirit of sport. The paper demonstrates how these provisions link to other parts of the Code, (under the rules of the Code 2009) in the absence of performance-enhancing properties combined with a health risk. The paper draws implications from these findings regarding terminological (im)precision, legal certainty/predictability, transparency/accountability, limits to arbitrary exercise of power and internal/external validity.     

Moral realism and program explanation

Alexander Miller has recently considered an ingenious extension of Frank Jackson and Philip Pettit's account of ‘program explanation’ as a way of defending non-reductive naturalist versions of moral realism against Harman's explanatory criticism. Despite the ingenuity of this extension, Miller concludes that program explanation cannot help such moral realists in their attempt to defend moral properties. Specifically, he argues that such moral program explanations are dispensable from an epistemically unlimited point of view. I show that Miller's argument for this negative claim is inadequate, and that he has, in spite of himself, identified a promising defence of moral realism.