{"title":"Peter Adkins (ed.), Virginia Woolf and the Anthropocene, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2024.","authors":"Pengfei Zhang","doi":"10.1007/s40656-024-00657-z","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s40656-024-00657-z","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":56308,"journal":{"name":"History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences","volume":"47 1","pages":"7"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2025-01-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143017170","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Does randomization assert the balance across trial arms? Revisiting Worrall's criticism.","authors":"Mariusz Maziarz","doi":"10.1007/s40656-024-00655-1","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s40656-024-00655-1","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>We revisit John Worrall's old but still prominent argument against the view that randomization balances the impact of both known and unknown confounders across the treatment and control arms. We argue that his argument involving indefinitely many possible confounders is at odds with statistical theory as it (1) presumes that the purpose of randomized studies is obtaining perfect point estimates for which perfect balance is needed; (2) mistakes equalizing each confounder with the overall (average) impact of all confounders, and (3) assumes that the joint effect of an infinite series of confounders cannot be bounded. We defend the role of randomization in balancing the impact of confounders across the treatment and control arms by putting forward the statistical sense of the balance claim. It involves the following three commitments: (1) randomization balances confounders in expectancy, (2) for RCTs to deliver unbiased estimates of the causal effect (true average treatment effect), the balance in the average effect of all confounders and not balancing each confounder is sufficient, and (3) randomization allows for calculating the probability of deviating from the balance. The paper includes a review of how the balance claim has been understood so far and discusses recent arguments supporting randomization balancing the impact of confounders in expectancy and the crucial role of the average impact of all actual confounders, and shows how statistical analysis of RCTs conducted both at the design and analysis stage makes possible estimating the probabilities of deviating from the balance.</p>","PeriodicalId":56308,"journal":{"name":"History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences","volume":"47 1","pages":"6"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2025-01-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142985777","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Hawks, Doves, and Perissodus microlepis. Undermining the selected effects theory of function.","authors":"Claudio Davini","doi":"10.1007/s40656-024-00642-6","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s40656-024-00642-6","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The selected effects theory is supposed to provide a fully naturalistic basis for statements about what biological traits or processes are for without appeal to final causes or intelligent design. On the selected effects theory, biologists are allowed to say, for instance, that hindwing eyespots on butterfly wings serve to deflect predators' attacks away from vital organs because a similar fitness-enhancing effect explains why eyespots themselves were favoured by natural selection and persisted in the population. This is known as the explanatory dimension of the selected effects theory. According to it, appealing to the fitness-enhancing effect of a certain trait or process is sufficient to explain its current presence in a population, namely, why it persisted and still exists in that population. In this paper, however, I will call such a claim into question, and I will do so by discussing a mathematical Hawk-Dove example and a real case scenario taken from evolutionary biology, that of Perissodus microlepis. These are scenarios in which the selective filter does not allow variants with the highest fitness at a certain moment to prevail over their available alternatives. In similar cases, I will argue, citing fitness-enhancing effects does not represent an adequate explanation of what happens in the population, undermining the explanatory dimension of the selected effects theory.</p>","PeriodicalId":56308,"journal":{"name":"History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences","volume":"47 1","pages":"5"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2025-01-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142980925","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Listening to placebos: the contested lessons of antidepressants debates.","authors":"Renata Prati","doi":"10.1007/s40656-024-00656-0","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s40656-024-00656-0","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The goal of this paper is to explore a set of epistemological and ontological issues regarding the historical and philosophical role of placebos in the contested history of antidepressants. Starting from an account of the dual nature of the placebo as both an epistemic and a therapeutic tool, and against the background of the heated debates on the efficacy of second-generation antidepressants, I propose two related arguments. First, I argue that placebos as controls played a crucial but paradoxical role in the rise of so-called evidence-based approaches to depression. Second, I discuss how current research on placebo effects puts into question some of the most crucial assumptions of psychiatric technoscience regarding the ontology of affective experiences. Ultimately, this paper aims to probe discussions around placebos, placebo effects, and the status of depression both as a diagnostic category and a lived experience.</p>","PeriodicalId":56308,"journal":{"name":"History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences","volume":"47 1","pages":"3"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2025-01-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142959229","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Can science help discover the nature of well-being?","authors":"Antonin Broi","doi":"10.1007/s40656-024-00653-3","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s40656-024-00653-3","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In recent years the study of well-being has attracted considerable attention, fostering hope that the scientific community will ultimately succeed in discovering its very nature, thereby emulating successful scientific projects in other disciplines. However, there have been recurring worries about how to measure and define well-being. In this context, Hersch (Br J Philos Sci 73:1045-1065, 2022) has recently argued that we could progressively alleviate these worries through an iterative dialogue between theory and measurement, by seeing them as stemming from a coordination problem. In this article, I argue that the concept of well-being fails to meet the prerequisites for Hersch's approach. If the latter is the best defense of the capacity of science to uncover the nature of well-being, it follows that the science of well-being should probably relinquish this ambition.</p>","PeriodicalId":56308,"journal":{"name":"History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences","volume":"47 1","pages":"4"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2025-01-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142959225","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Crystallizing techniques: sample preparations, technical knowledge, and the characterization of blood crystals, 1840-1909.","authors":"Dana Matthiessen","doi":"10.1007/s40656-024-00651-5","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s40656-024-00651-5","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Sample preparation is the process of altering a naturally occurring object into a representative form that is amenable to scientific inquiry. Preparation is an important preliminary to data collection, ubiquitous in the life sciences and elsewhere, yet relatively neglected in historical and philosophical literature. This paper presents a detailed historical case study involving the preparation and study of blood crystals in the nineteenth century. The case is used to highlight significant features of preparation, which aid our understanding of the epistemology of sciences in which preparations play an important role. First, it shows the role of technical knowledge in efforts to characterize a scientific phenomenon or object of interest. Especially in early stages of characterization, scientists improve their understanding of what they are preparing by better understanding their preparation procedures. Second, this case contributes to recent views of characterization as a relatively autonomous domain of scientific activity. It shows how preparation functions as a site for integrating different experimental methods, and the difficulties that ensue. In light of these considerations, the case shows how characterization is capable of shaping or constraining explanatory pursuits as much as it is guided by them.</p>","PeriodicalId":56308,"journal":{"name":"History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences","volume":"47 1","pages":"2"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2024-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142848580","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Correction: Diversification or sensory unification? Controversies around the senses in fin de siècle culture.","authors":"Sonsoles Hernandez Barbosa","doi":"10.1007/s40656-024-00654-2","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s40656-024-00654-2","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":56308,"journal":{"name":"History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences","volume":"47 1","pages":"1"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2024-12-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11649723/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142830938","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Obesogenic vs. fatphobic: an examination of environment in relation to fatness.","authors":"Tiana Dodson","doi":"10.1007/s40656-024-00637-3","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s40656-024-00637-3","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The eradication of fatness (referred to as \"obesity\") is a longtime project of the medical establishment under the guise of health promotion. However, in spite of the large budgets, amount of studies done, and number of interventions tried over the years, the weights of the population still seem to be trending upward. Recent studies and research have been looking into frameworks aimed at combating fatness by reshaping the \"obesogenic\" environment as an approach that takes into account the social and physical environment and its part in promoting fatness. On its face, this research direction looks as if the discourse is changing from seating the fault of fatness at the feet of the individual and placing it more into the social systems and factors surrounding them. In this paper, I will challenge the continued conversation around \"solving\" fatness by looking at the role of the environment as a causal factor and will instead highlight the need to focus more on the impacts of a fatphobic environment on the wellness of fat people.</p>","PeriodicalId":56308,"journal":{"name":"History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences","volume":"46 4","pages":"48"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2024-12-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142820266","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Pavlovian theory and the development of traditional Chinese medicine, 1949-1961.","authors":"Haiwei Yang, Huili Zhang","doi":"10.1007/s40656-024-00632-8","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s40656-024-00632-8","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the leadership of the new country carried out a political, cultural, and scientific campaign to \"comprehensively learn from the Soviet Union,\" with the goal of rapid development on all fronts. In the realm of medicine, this had profound consequences. The hegemonic Soviet theory of physiology and psychology-Pavlovianism-became highly influential in China, first as Party Line and second as the basis for a reformed \"traditional Chinese medicine\". In the early 1950s, Pavlov's theory of higher nervous activity had the status of unquestioned orthodoxy. However, a disagreement between the Ministry of Health and national leader Mao Zedong led to an important shift in 1954. After that date, instead of adopting the Soviet theories wholesale, Chinese medical practitioners used Pavlovianism to shape Chinese medicine's underlying theoretical constructs. The influence of this reconstruction persists to this day, in practices thought of by the public as thoroughly Chinese, like acupuncture, holistic thinking, inner organs theory, and acupoint injection therapy.</p>","PeriodicalId":56308,"journal":{"name":"History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences","volume":"46 4","pages":"47"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2024-12-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142820275","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Historicizing the liberal antiracism of Cultural Evolution.","authors":"Cameron Brinitzer","doi":"10.1007/s40656-024-00647-1","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s40656-024-00647-1","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The Cultural Evolution Society was established in 2015 to \"catalyze a theoretical synthesis\" in the scientific study of human culture. As a field of research, cultural evolution took shape in the 1970s and 1980s around the aim of incorporating culture into biology's modern evolutionary synthesis. Cultural evolution grew around the turn of the twenty-first century at the interface of population genetics and cognitive psychology. This article locates the origins of research on cultural evolution in projects of postwar scientific antiracism and U.S.-based debates about race and intelligence in the 1960s. Charting the development of prominent approaches to studying cultural evolution, I show how population geneticists and cognitive psychologists worked to redefine culture in statistical, populational, and geographic terms to politically neutralize the study of human difference. I situate the forms of genetic and cognitive culturalism that emerged as a result in a longer history of twentieth-century scientific antiracism.</p>","PeriodicalId":56308,"journal":{"name":"History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences","volume":"46 4","pages":"46"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2024-12-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11621191/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142787843","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}