Empirical tests of scientific realism: A quantitative framework

The scientific realism debate in philosophy of science raises some intriguing methodological issues. Scientific realism posits a link between a scientific theory's observational and referential success. This opens the possibility of testing the thesis empirically, by searching for evidence of such a link in the record of theories put forward in the history of science. Many realist philosophers working today propose case study methodology as a way of carrying out such a test. This article argues that a qualitative method such as case study methodology is not adequate for this purpose, for two reasons: to test scientific realism is to pose an effects-of-causes question, and observational and referential success are quantities that theories possess to a greater or lesser degree. The article concludes that an empirical test of scientific realism requires a quantitative method.     

Dance becomes therapeutic in the mid to late 20th century

The convergence of dance art and therapeutic culture engendered the development of dance-movement therapy in the mid to late 20th century internationally. This article traces the sociopolitical, institutional, and aesthetic influences that coalesced in this process by contrasting histories of dance-movement therapy in Hungary and in the United States. The professionalization dance-movement therapy, through which it established its own theory, practice, and training institutions, occurred first in the United States in the late 1940s. Modern dancers in the United States began to conceptualize their activity as therapeutic, and the dancer as a (secular) healer, a therapist. The influx of therapeutic concepts into the field of dance is viewed as an example of therapeutic discourse permeating various areas of life in the 20th century. The Hungarian case provides a contrasting history of therapeutic culture, one that deviates from the predominant view of the phenomenon as a product of the global spread of Western modernization and the growth of free-market capitalism. Hungarian movement and dance therapy indeed developed independently from its American predecessor. Its history is intimately tied to the sociopolitical context of state-socialist period, particularly to the institutionalization of psychotherapy in public hospitals, and to the adaptation of Western group psychotherapies within the informal setting of the “second public sphere.” The legacy of Michael Balint and the British object-relations school provided its theoretical framework. Its methodology was rooted in postmodern dance. The methodological differences between American dance-movement therapy and the Hungarian method reflects the shift in dance aesthetics that occurred internationally between 1940 and 1980s.     

Psychology and the fall of Communism: The special case of (East) Germany

The fall of Communism is now universally agreed to be what the philosopher Hegel called a world historical event—one that few predicted but nearly everyone saw as inevitable after it happened. In the aftermath many lives—and worldviews—changed, not only, but also in the human sciences. These remarks attempt to address in a preliminary way both the impact of the fall of Communism on psychology in former East Germany (including changes in personnel and approach) and the ways in which these sciences were employed as resources for reflection on the Communist past as well as the transition to new social and political regimes.     

Visual attention to own- versus other-race faces: Perspectives from learning mechanisms and task demands

Multiple factors have been proposed to contribute to the other-race effect in face recognition, including perceptual expertise and social-cognitive accounts. Here, we propose to understand the effect and its contributing factors from the perspectives of learning mechanisms that involve joint learning of visual attention strategies and internal representations for faces, which can be modulated by quality of contact with other-race individuals including emotional and motivational factors. Computational simulations of this process will enhance our understanding of interactions among factors and help resolve inconsistent results in the literature. In particular, since learning is driven by task demands, visual attention effects observed in different face-processing tasks, such as passive viewing or recognition, are likely to be task specific (although may be associated) and should be examined and compared separately. When examining visual attention strategies, the use of more data-driven and comprehensive eye movement measures, taking both spatial–temporal pattern and consistency of eye movements into account, can lead to novel discoveries in other-race face processing. The proposed framework and analysis methods may be applied to other tasks of real-life significance such as face emotion recognition, further enhancing our understanding of the relationship between learning and visual cognition.     

Australia Day or Invasion Day? Perspectives on the Continuing Impact of Colonialism Underlies Public Contestations Around Australia's National Day

The ways in which collective memories are constructed in the present is important in explaining how people choose to commemorate their nation's history. The present research focused on the context of Australia Day, a controversial national holiday that falls on January 26, which is a date that marks the beginning of colonization. We conducted field surveys of community members participating in an Invasion Day protest pushing for Indigenous rights (n = 219) and community members enjoying the public holiday in a public park (n = 174). We found that greater recognition of colonial history explained protesters' (vs. nonprotesters') greater support for changing the date of Australia Day. Further, protesters' lower levels of perceived continuity and higher levels of desired continuity of First Australian culture was linked to greater support for changing the date of Australia Day compared to the nonprotesters. These findings suggest that creating consensus over contested collective memories of a nation's history requires greater recognition of the ongoing impact of past atrocities.     

特质自我控制对食物线索注意偏向的影响及干预：来自眼动的证据

采用眼动技术,以BMI指数处于正常范围的女性为被试,考察特质自我控制对食物线索注意偏向的影响以及注意偏向训练在改变注意偏向强度上的干预效果。结果发现,对于高热量食物线索,低特质自我控制水平女性表现出了更强的注意偏向;注意偏向训练有效降低了低特质自我控制水平女性对高热量食物线索注意偏向的强度。上述结果表明,特质自我控制影响个体对食物线索的注意偏向,注意偏向训练能有效改变个体对食物线索注意偏向的强度。     

Clinical interpretation: The hermeneutics of medicine

I argue that clinical medicine can best be understood not as a purified science but as a hermeneutical enterprise: that is, as involved with the interpretation of texts. The literary critic reading a novel, the judge asked to apply a law, must arrive at a coherent reading of their respective texts. Similarly, the physician interprets the text of the ill person: clinical signs and symptoms are read to ferret out their meaning, the underlying disease. However, I suggest that the hermeneutics of medicine is rendered uniquely complex by its wide variety of textual forms. I discuss four in turn: the experiential text of illness as lived out by the patient; the narrative text constituted during history-taking; the physical text of the patient's body as objectively examined; the instrumental text constructed by diagnostic technologies. I further suggest that certain flaws in modern medicine arise from its refusal of a hermeneutic self-understanding. In seeking to escape all interpretive subjectivity, medicine has threatened to expunge its primary subject — the living, experiencing patient.     

The crane's foot: The rise of the pedigree in human genetics

The standard pedigree used by geneticists is intimately connected to the history of genetics. Pedigrees drawn today are based on standards established in the early decades of the twentieth century. Those standards were established by geneticists who pursued an active interest in eugenics. The slightly different standards followed in America vs. England to some extent followed the stronger support of Mendelism by the Americans, as well as the individual preferences of the leading human geneticists in those countries.     

The myth of science education

It is argued that the manner in which we teach science in the high schools represents an outdated positivistic conception of science. The standard presentation of a year of each of chemistry, biology and physics should be replaced by an integrated science plus history, philosophy, and sociology of science which would take a total of three years to complete. A proper appreciation for the true nature of science is essential to the continued health of the scientific enterprise.