Spectacular treatment disasters in recent years have made it clear that informal "let's-try-it-and-see" methods of testing new proposals are more risky now than ever before, and have led many to call for a halt to experimentation in clinical medicine. In this easy-tp-read, philosophical guide to human experimentation, William Silverman pleads for wider use of randomized clinical trials, citing many examples that show how careful trials can overturn preconceived or ill-conceived notions of a therapy's effectiveness and lead to a clearer (...) understanding of clinical anomalies. Because it gives careful guidance on setting up trials and avoiding conceptual pitfalls, this book will be of great interest to all epidemiologists and clinical statisticians, and to a wide varitey of clinicians, pharmacologists, and nurses. Since it requires no medical or statistical knowledge, it will also appeal to ethicists, lawyers, and the general public. (shrink)

BackgroundBiobanks have recently been established in several low- and middle-income countries in the Arab region of the Middle East. We aimed to explore the views of biobank managers regarding the challenges, ethical issues, and governance arrangements of their biobanks.MethodsIn-depth semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of eight biobank managers from Egypt, Jordan, and Sudan. Interviews were performed either face-to-face, by phone, or via Zoom and lasted approximately 45–75 min. After verbal consent, interviews were recorded and then transcribed. (...) The authors performed a thematic analysis of the transcripts independently and then integrated the themes via a consensus process.ResultsBiobank managers discussed the main challenges in establishing their biobanks. These included the staff’s lack of experience and training, limited funds, deficit awareness of biobanks, obtaining funding from different sources. Only four reported they were active in distributing biospecimens and health data to researchers. Six biobanks used a broad consent model, one used tiered consent, and another allowed participants to opt-out of being recontacted. Five managers avoided partnerships with pharmaceutical companies due to concerns with unfavorable reactions from the community. Five managers did not have clear policies for returning research results to the donors. Five expressed challenges with sample and data sharing with international collaborators; all five used material transfer agreements. The biobank managers revealed variable governance arrangements and activities with community involving awareness and educational efforts rather than active engagement. Several expressed the importance of transparency with the operations of their biobanks and gaining the trust of their stakeholders.ConclusionManagers of biobanks in LMICs in the Arab Middle East encounter financial, operational, and social challenges toward their sustainability efforts. Discussions with key stakeholders are warranted to manage ethical issues involving informed consent, privacy, data sharing, and the return of results. We recommend that biobank managers in the Arab Middle East form collaborative networks within the region and internationally, develop trusting governance relationships with their stakeholders, and pursue engagement activities with their communities to enhance trust. (shrink)

In the late 1970s, while working in my laboratory at the American Health Foundation, I received a phone call from Henry Spira. Not one for small talk, he did not even bother introducing himself beyond his name. He immediately began questioning me about my studies using the protozoan Tetrahymenathermophila, which I hoped would serve as an alternative to the Draize ocular irritation test. While flattered that someone cared about my work, I was soon lost in confusion and skepticism about the (...) true purpose of his call. Who was Henry Spira? Why did he want to visit my animal facility and why did he want to bring a physician colleague with him? Not only was I naive about the budding opposition to the Draize test, I was equally naive that it was Spira, an ardent animal protectionist, who was leading the fight. This seminal interaction began a friendship that spanned nearly twenty years; a friendship that indelibly changed my perception of nonhuman animals and how I relate to them. (shrink)

Upshot: Paul Silverman is Professor in the Psychology Department of the University of Montana. He completed his doctorate at the University of Georgia in 1977 with Ernst von Glasersfeld as mentor. His essay focuses on his personal encounters with him during that period.

This article is the first in a trilogy about the concept “science”. Section 1 considers the historical development of the meaning of the term science and shows its close relation to the terms “knowl­edge” and “philosophy”. Section 2 presents four historic phases in the basic conceptualizations of science science as representing absolute certain of knowl­edge based on deductive proof; science as representing absolute certain of knowl­edge based on “the scientific method”; science as representing fallible knowl­edge based on “the scientific method”; (...) science without a belief in “the scientific method” as constitutive, hence the question about the nature of science becomes dramatic. Section 3 presents four basic understandings of the scientific method: Rationalism, which gives priority to a priori thinking; empiricism, which gives priority to the collection, description, and processing of data in a neutral way; historicism, which gives priority to the interpretation of data in the light of “paradigm” and pragmatism, which emphasizes the analysis of the purposes, consequences, and the interests of knowl­edge. The second article in the trilogy focus on different fields studying science, while the final article presets further developments in the concept of science and the general conclusion. Overall, the trilogy illuminates the most important tensions in different conceptualizations of science and argues for the role of information science and knowl­edge organization in the study of science and suggests how “science” should be understood as an object of research in these fields. (shrink)

This introduction to a special issue of Topoi introduces and summarises the relationship between three main varieties of 'enactivist' theorising about the mind: 'autopoietic', 'sensorimotor', and 'radical' enactivism. It includes a brief discussion of the philosophical and cognitive scientific precursors to enactivist theories, and the relationship of enactivism to other trends in embodied cognitive science and philosophy of mind.

First published in 2003. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This book surveys Piaget's work from a number of angles, and general discussions of the main conceptual oppositions of this theory are balanced with more ...

The Supply of Concepts achieves a major breakthrough in the general theory of systems. The author unites all knowledge by including not only the natural but also the philosophical and theological universes of discourse. The general systems model presented here resembles an organizational flow chart that represents conceptual positions within any type of system and shows how the parts are connected hierarchically for communication and control. Analyzing many types of systems in various branches of learned discourse, the model demonstrates how (...) any system type manages to maintain itself true to type. The concepts thus generated form a network that serves as a storehouse for the supply of concepts in learned discourse. (shrink)

O’Regan and Noë’s sensorimotor approach rejects the old-fashioned view that perceptual experience in humans depends solely on the activation of internal representations. Reflecting a wealth of empirical work, for example active vision, the approach suggests that perceiving is, instead, a matter of bodily exploration of the outside environment. To this end, the approach says the perceiver must deploy knowledge of sensorimotor contingencies, the ways sense input changes with movement by the perceiver or object perceived. Clark has observed that the approach (...) faces a challenge accounting for the experience of temporal duration, since event-like properties cannot be characterised by reference to the sensory consequences of possible movements. This paper argues that the account can best be shored up by emphasising, more than Noë does, the dependence of perceptual experience, in general, on temporally extended, organismic interaction with the outside environment. The paper argues, moreover, that an ‘extensionalist’ account of temporal experience could help make sense of object experience, which is itself, plausibly, an experience of temporal duration. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Sensorimotor Direct Realism: How We Enact Our World” by Michael Beaton. Upshot: In light of the construal of sensorimotor theory offered by the target article, this commentary examines the role the theory should admit for internal representation.

A new preface by the author updates this classic text.

The Prudence of Love focuses upon the intersection of philosophical, theological, and psychological issues related to love. Eric Silverman defends an account of love derived from the views of Thomas Aquinas and argues that love provides numerous psychological and relational benefits that increase the lover's happiness. Furthermore, he argues that love is beneficial according to all major contemporary accounts of happiness.