Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences RSS feedThis is an RSS file. You can use it to subscribe to this data in your favourite RSS reader or to display this data on your own website or blog.

Motives and merits of counterfactual histories of science
Publication date: Available online 10 November 2018Source: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical SciencesAuthor(s): Joachim L. DaggAbstractI consider the motives of historians devising counterfactual histories, analyze the narrative structure of these histories, and assess their merits. Richard Evans attacked counterfactual histories as motivated by wishful thinking. And he claimed that they could not contribute anything to the understanding of the past because they are concerned “with pointing out supposedly preferable alternatives.” Both cl...
Source: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences - November 11, 2018 Category: History of Medicine Source Type: research

From seconds to eons: Time scales, hierarchies, and processes in evo-devo
Publication date: Available online 2 November 2018Source: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical SciencesAuthor(s): Jan Baedke, Siobhan F. Mc ManusAbstractThis paper addresses the role of time scales in conceptualizing biological hierarchies. So far, the concept of hierarchies in philosophy of science has been dominated by the idea of composition and parthood, respectively. However, this view does not exhaust the diversity of hierarchical descriptions in the biosciences. Therefore, we highlight a type of hierarchy usually overlooked by philosopher...
Source: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences - November 3, 2018 Category: History of Medicine Source Type: research

“Relaxed” natural kinds and psychiatric classification
Publication date: Available online 3 November 2018Source: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical SciencesAuthor(s): Somogy VargaAbstractThis paper starts out highlighting a particular criticism that psychiatry faces and continues by investigating approaches to classification in psychiatry that operate with a “relaxed” (non-essentialist) notion of natural kind. Two accounts are examined, one by Rachel Cooper (2005; 2013) and one based on the work of Richard Boyd (1991; 1999; 2003; 2010). While these accounts do not directly pursue such a goal, ...
Source: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences - November 3, 2018 Category: History of Medicine Source Type: research

Tangled Diagnoses: Prenatal Testing, Women, and Risk, Ilana Löwy. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL (2018), 352pp. Price $37.50 Paper, ISBN: 9780226534091
Publication date: Available online 31 October 2018Source: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical SciencesAuthor(s): Andrew J. Hogan (Source: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences)
Source: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences - November 1, 2018 Category: History of Medicine Source Type: research

ENCODE and the parts of the human genome
Publication date: Available online 29 October 2018Source: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical SciencesAuthor(s): Marie I. KaiserAbstractThis paper examines a specific kind of part-whole relations that exist in the molecular genetic domain. The central question is under which conditions a particular molecule, such as a DNA sequence, is a biological part of the human genome. I address this question by analyzing how biologists in fact partition the human genome into parts. This paper thus presents a case study in the metaphysics of biological prac...
Source: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences - October 30, 2018 Category: History of Medicine Source Type: research

Human & Animal Cognition in Early Modern Philosophy & Medicine, Stefanie Buchenau, Roberto Lo Presti (Eds.). University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh (2017), ix + 354 pp., Price $55.00 hardcover, ISBN: 9780822944720
Publication date: Available online 17 October 2018Source: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical SciencesAuthor(s): Tawrin Baker (Source: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences)
Source: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences - October 18, 2018 Category: History of Medicine Source Type: research

Sequencing through thick and thin: Historiographical and philosophical implications
Publication date: Available online 15 October 2018Source: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical SciencesAuthor(s): James W.E. LoweAbstractDNA sequencing has been characterised by scholars and life scientists as an example of ‘big’, ‘fast’ and ‘automated’ science in biology. This paper argues, however, that these characterisations are a product of a particular interpretation of what sequencing is, what I call ‘thin sequencing’. The ‘thin sequencing’ perspective focuses on the determination of the order of bases in a particular ...
Source: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences - October 16, 2018 Category: History of Medicine Source Type: research

Mechanism diagrams and abstraction-by-aggregation
Publication date: Available online 11 October 2018Source: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical SciencesAuthor(s): Sim-Hui TeeAbstractMechanism diagrams exhibit visually the organized parts and operations of a biological mechanism. A mechanism diagram can facilitate mechanistic research by providing a mechanistic explanation of the phenomenon of interest. Much research has been focusing on the mechanistic explanation and the explanatory mechanistic models. As a specific type of scientific diagram, a simple mechanism diagram can be explanatory by ...
Source: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences - October 12, 2018 Category: History of Medicine Source Type: research

The “sick dancers”: The construction of medical knowledge about the “epidemic of dance” in Itapagipe, Salvador, Bahia (1882–1901)
Publication date: Available online 9 October 2018Source: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical SciencesAuthor(s): Filipe Pinto MonteiroAbstractThe goal of this paper is to analyze a little-known set of documents referring to a “Dancing Epidemic” that took place in Itapagipe, a suburb of Salvador, capital of the province of Bahia, Brazil, in 1882. Through the studies of a group of physicians, especially Raimundo Nina Rodrigues (1862–1906), a psychiatrist and anthropologist from the Bahia School of Medicine, the medical knowledge built on thi...
Source: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences - October 10, 2018 Category: History of Medicine Source Type: research

A blooming and buzzing confusion: Buffon, Reimarus, and Kant on animal cognition
Publication date: Available online 5 October 2018Source: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical SciencesAuthor(s): Hein van den BergAbstractKant's views on animals have received much attention in recent years. According to some, Kant attributed the capacity for objective perceptual awareness to non-human animals, even though he denied that they have concepts. This position is difficult to square with a conceptualist reading of Kant, according to which objective perceptual awareness requires concepts. Others take Kant's views on animals to imply th...
Source: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences - October 6, 2018 Category: History of Medicine Source Type: research

Searle on the biology of seeing
Publication date: Available online 5 October 2018Source: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical SciencesAuthor(s): Pierre Le MorvanAbstractSearle offers an account of seeing as a conscious state not constituted by the object(s) seen. I focus in this article on his biological case for this thesis, and argue that the biological considerations he adduces neither establish his own position nor defeat a rival object-inclusive view. I show (among other things) that taking seeing to be a biological state is compatible with its being (partially) constitut...
Source: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences - October 5, 2018 Category: History of Medicine Source Type: research

Synthesis, convergence, and differences in the entangled histories of cytogenetics in medicine: A comparative study of Canada and Mexico
Conclusions are then drawn using comparisons of the different ways in which local determinants affected adoption. We then propose directions for future study focused on the ways in which circuits of practices, collaborative research, and transfers of knowledge have shaped how cytogenetics has come to be organised in medicine around the world. (Source: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences)
Source: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences - September 15, 2018 Category: History of Medicine Source Type: research

Editorial Board
Publication date: August 2018Source: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, Volume 70Author(s): (Source: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences)
Source: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences - August 15, 2018 Category: History of Medicine Source Type: research

Historical biological essentialism
Publication date: Available online 10 August 2018Source: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical SciencesAuthor(s): Michael Devitt (Source: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences)
Source: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences - August 10, 2018 Category: History of Medicine Source Type: research

Functional ecology's non-selectionist understanding of function
Publication date: Available online 27 July 2018Source: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical SciencesAuthor(s): Antoine C. DussaultAbstractThis paper reinforces the current consensus against the applicability of the selected effect theory of function in ecology. It does so by presenting an argument which, in contrast with the usual argument invoked in support of this consensus, is not based on claims about whether ecosystems are customary units of natural selection. Instead, the argument developed here is based on observations about the use of th...
Source: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences - July 28, 2018 Category: History of Medicine Source Type: research