The State of Teaching Philosophy in Behavior Analysis Training Programs.

Professional organizations that oversee the accreditation of graduate training programs in behavior analysis have increased didactic training requirements for programs in various domains across the years. One of the areas in which this has occurred concerns training in philosophy within behavior science. Although content-hour requirements for didactic philosophical training have increased, the contents of this training are not prescribed and are left to the discretion of individual programs. We conducted a survey of verified course sequence programs to assess the current state of training in philosophy in behavior analysis graduate training programs. The results provided a list of common topics and readings in philosophy courses, and indicated an emphasis on radical behaviorism and the works of B. F. Skinner. The list of topics and readings obtained provides a resource for course design, and we suggest that exposing students to a broader range of behavioristic and nonbehavioristic topics and readings may enhance students' orientation to philosophical issues in behavior analysis. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40617-023-00889-8.

Reflections: enhancing critical thinking in science education by implementing philosophy elements into training.

In this work, I describe the trajectory of philosophy and science as separate disciplines from their early days as quite overlapping fields to their clear divergence in the latest centuries. From personal experience, I discuss the benefits of exposure to philosophy and closely related courses in undergraduate studies and bring to the forefront the positive aspects of integrating philosophy of science courses in graduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) curriculum. I also briefly offer some additional steps institutions can take to foster unity between areas of science and philosophy by incorporating interdisciplinary activities.

Phenotype divergence and cooperation in isogenic multicellularity and in cancer.

We discuss the mathematical modelling of two of the main mechanisms that pushed forward the emergence of multicellularity: phenotype divergence in cell differentiation and between-cell cooperation. In line with the atavistic theory of cancer, this disease being specific of multicellular animals, we set special emphasis on how both mechanisms appear to be reversed, however not totally impaired, rather hijacked, in tumour cell populations. Two settings are considered: the completely innovating, tinkering, situation of the emergence of multicellularity in the evolution of species, which we assume to be constrained by external pressure on the cell populations, and the completely planned-in the body plan-situation of the physiological construction of a developing multicellular animal from the zygote, or of bet hedging in tumours, assumed to be of clonal formation, although the body plan is largely-but not completely-lost in its constituting cells. We show how cancer impacts these two settings and we sketch mathematical models for them. We present here our contribution to the question at stake with a background from biology, from mathematics and from philosophy of science.

From mono to multi-causality: Towards a comprehensive perspective on understanding death.

Cause-of-death statistics are an age-old source of information for health policy and medical research. In these statistics, the presentation of data is based on the idea of an underlying cause of death, i.e. one ("the") cause of death per deceased. This idea reflects an 18th Century causal thinking and is less and less applicable to contemporary patterns of dying in high income countries with an aging population suffering from chronic diseases and multi- or comorbidity at the end of life. Therefore, today's clinical reality calls for an innovation of cause-of-death statistics. For this, I will consider contemporary philosophical ideas on causality and their application to death. I will argue multi-causality is a more comprehensive way to understand death than mono-causality, implying a change of perspective with regard to current cause-of-death statistics.

Science and Faith to Understand Milk Bioactivity for Infants.

Milk bioactivity refers to the specific health effects of milk components beyond nutrition. The science of milk bioactivity involves the systematic study of these components and their health effects, as verified by empirical data, controlled experiments, and logical arguments. Conversely, 'faith in milk bioactivity' can be defined as personal opinion, meaning, value, trust, and hope for health effects that are beyond investigation by natural, social, or human sciences. Faith can be strictly secular, but also influenced by spirituality or religion. The aim of this paper is to show that scientific knowledge is frequently supplemented with faith convictions to establish personal and public understanding of milk bioactivity. Mammalian milk is an immensely complex fluid containing myriad proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, and micronutrients with multiple functions across species, genetics, ages, environments, and cultures. Human health includes not only physical health, but also social, mental, and spiritual health, requiring widely different fields of science to prove the relevance, safety, and efficacy of milk interventions. These complex relationships between milk feeding and health outcomes prevent firm conclusions based on science and logic alone. Current beliefs in and understanding of the value of breast milk, colostrum, infant formula, or isolated milk proteins (e.g., immunoglobulins, α-lactalbumin, lactoferrin, and growth factors) show that both science and faith contribute to understand, stimulate, or restrict the use of milk bioactivity. The benefits of breastfeeding for infants are beyond doubt, but the strong beliefs in its health effects rely not only on science, and mechanisms are unclear. Likewise, fear of, or trust in, infant formula may rely on both science and faith. Knowledge from science safeguards individuals and society against 'milk bioactivity superstition'. Conversely, wisdom from faith-based convictions may protect science from unrealistic 'milk bioactivity scientism'. Honesty and transparency about the potentials and limitations of both scientific knowledge and faith convictions are important when informing individuals and society about the nutritious and bioactive qualities of milk.

Tumor-Agnostic Therapy-The Final Step Forward in the Cure for Human Neoplasms?

Cancer accounted for 10 million deaths in 2020, nearly one in every six deaths annually. Despite advancements, the contemporary clinical management of human neoplasms faces a number of challenges. Surgical removal of tumor tissues is often not possible technically, while radiation and chemotherapy pose the risk of damaging healthy cells, tissues, and organs, presenting complex clinical challenges. These require a paradigm shift in developing new therapeutic modalities moving towards a more personalized and targeted approach. The tumor-agnostic philosophy, one of these new modalities, focuses on characteristic molecular signatures of transformed cells independently of their traditional histopathological classification. These include commonly occurring DNA aberrations in cancer cells, shared metabolic features of their homeostasis or immune evasion measures of the tumor tissues. The first dedicated, FDA-approved tumor-agnostic agent's profound progression-free survival of 78% in mismatch repair-deficient colorectal cancer paved the way for the accelerated FDA approvals of novel tumor-agnostic therapeutic compounds. Here, we review the historical background, current status, and future perspectives of this new era of clinical oncology.

What Is a Disease for Doctors? A Realist Thematic Qualitative Analysis of the Interpretation of Clinical Vignettes.

Given the long-standing debate about the nature of the concept of disease, the objective of this study was to understand how doctors categorize a condition as a disease or not, and what the kind of information they use is. A survey with a set of eighteen clinical vignettes was designed, and nineteen physicians and senior students purposefully selected were asked to interpret those situations as diseases or not and to produce an anonymous short written piece of text providing the motivation of their choice. Realist thematic analysis was used to analyse the answers, and four themes emerged: the temporal dimension of a disease, reification of disease, disease as an existential condition, and disease as a motivation to action. The respondents' interpretations were very heterogeneous, supporting the idea that physicians do not share a common prototypical concept of disease. The results suggested that the interpretation of a condition as a disease or not is the final outcome of a process, in which information from objective, subjective, and socially mediated elements is taken into consideration. According to a critical realist and systemic approach, we hypothesize that the context of doctor-patient relationship could influence the interpretation of the same condition as being a disease or not.

The quality of qualitative research.

In this contribution, we discuss criteria for the quality of qualitative research. We consider reliability and validity as specifications of the comprehensive requirement for 'intersubjective replicability', with which qualitative research should comply. In the data collection phase, 'argumentative' reliability generally must suffice; in the data analysis phase, attention must also be given to 'technical' reliability. Validation of qualitative research has to take place via three approaches: 'communicative', 'critical' or 'empirical' validation. This clarifies the relative validity or 'authenticity' of qualitative research.

The need for a change in medical research thinking. Eco-systemic research frames are better suited to explore patterned disease behaviors.

Many practicing physicians struggle to properly evaluate clinical research studies - they either simply do not know them, regard the reported findings as 'truth' since they were reported in a 'reputable' journal and blindly implement these interventions, or they disregard them as having little pragmatic impact or relevance to their daily clinical work. Three aspects for the latter are highlighted: study populations rarely reflect their practice population, the absolute average benefits on specific outcomes in most controlled studies, while statistically significant, are so small that they are pragmatically irrelevant, and overall mortality between the intervention and control groups are unaffected. These observations underscore the need to rethink our research approaches in the clinical context - moving from the predominant reductionist to an eco-systemic research approach will lead to knowledge better suited to clinical decision-making for an individual patient as it takes into account the complex interplay of multi-level variables that impact health outcomes in the real-world setting.

On the scientific credibility of paleoanthropology.

Smith and Smith and Wood proposed that the human fossil record offers special challenges for causal hypotheses because "unique" adaptations resist the comparative method. We challenge their notions of "uniqueness" and offer a refutation of the idea that there is something epistemologically special about human prehistoric data. Although paleontological data may be sparse, there is nothing inherent about this information that prevents its use in the inductive or deductive process, nor in the generation and testing of scientific hypotheses. The imprecision of the fossil record is well-understood, and such imprecision is often factored into hypotheses and methods. While we acknowledge some oversteps within the discipline, we also note that the history of paleoanthropology is clearly one of progress, with ideas tested and resolution added as data (fossils) are uncovered and new technologies applied, much like in sciences as diverse as astronomy, molecular genetics, and geology.

COVID-19 and the vaccine tax: an egalitarian, market-based approach to the global vaccine inequality.

The global inequality in the distribution of vaccines is unjust. As countries scrambled to ensure enough vaccines, the world's poorest were left to fend for themselves, and the generosity meant to mitigate this through COVAX was not sufficiently forthcoming. In light of this, I proposed a vaccine tax, which obligates those willing and able to pay to protect their own population to contribute to protecting those residing in the world's low-income countries. Petrovic has offered an important critique of this proposal, questioning both the fairness and the efficiency of the tax. However, when properly specified, the vaccine tax is not vulnerable to these critiques.

Is Suffering a Useless Concept?

"Suffering" is a central concept within bioethics and often a crucial consideration in medical decision making. As used in practice, however, the concept risks being uninformative, ambiguous, or even misleading. In this paper, we consider a series of cases in which "suffering" is invoked and analyze them in light of prominent theories of suffering. We then outline ethical hazards that arise as a result of imprecise usage of the concept and offer practical recommendations for avoiding them. Appeals to suffering are often getting at something ethically important. But this is where the work of ethics begins, not where it ends.

Translation Notes: Heidegger, Derrida, and the Chance for (a) Philosophy.

This paper aims to show that translation is not only a fully-fledged philosophical problem, but also a specific philosophical praxis and a test bed for extracting the core of different philosophical frameworks. For this purpose, I will take into consideration the respective philosophies of Martin Heidegger and Jacques Derrida. Even if Heidegger often practices translation from the Greek in his own works and adds a few remarks towards an original investigation of this activity, he ultimately understands translation as a 'makeshift' or as a 'shipwreck'. Throughout his contestation of Heidegger's position, Derrida shows the trap of the endless appropriation of the experience of the origin structure. He also frees up the discourse by putting the hierarchical polarization between the original and the translation into question. Thus, translation becomes a chance for philosophy, even for Derrida's deconstruction, a chance to generate new paths for investigation and to keep its question open.

Philosophical Reflections on Music Therapy Musicianship.

This philosophical inquiry critically examines music therapy musicianship in order to reconceptualize the ways in which musicianship is conceived of and taught in education and training programs in the United States. Through a constructive and critical interaction with historical and extant literature, we seek to create space for the uniqueness of musicianship in our field. We challenge the relevance of the conservatory model, the primacy of the work concept, and the focus on fine art often found in educational settings. In doing so, we align music therapy musicianship with relevant musics, instrumentation, and the unique contextual and relational components of music experiences in our work. We construct multidirectional connections between musicality, musical identity, musicianship, music therapy context, musicking, and the clients'/participants' lifeworld, introducing subconcepts within and between each concept. This co-construction with the literature asserts our identity in education, training, practice, and research. We conclude by offering preliminary guidance that may further develop music therapy musicianship in education and clinical training programs, in alignment with current reports on education.

The open ontology and information society.

Information, as the most elusive subject, is central to all forms of thought, governance, economic structure, science, and society. Regulation of information, especially within the healthcare field, is proving to be a difficult task globally, given the lack of a qualitative framework and understanding of the concept and properties of information (or data) itself. The presentation of the overall qualitative framework, comprising a qualitative analysis of information, data, and knowledge, will be valuable and of great assistance in delineating regulatory, ethical, and strategic trajectories. In addition, this framework provides insights (and answers) regarding (1) data privacy and protection; (2) delineations between information, data, and knowledge based on the important notion of trust; (3) a structured approach to establishing the necessary conditions for an open society and system, and the maintenance of said openness, based on the work of Karl Popper and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel; (4) an active agent approach that promotes autonomy and freedom and protects the open society; and (5) a data governance mechanism based on the work of Friedrich Hayek, which structures the current legal-ethical-financial and social society. This is insightful for questions relating to the extent of rights and duties, the extent of biological bodies and freedom, and the structure of relations in distributed networked systems. There is great value offered in this framework; furthermore, it provides critical insights and thoughts about (and uncovers the interplay between) academic culture, politics, science, society, and societal decay. Note that, in line with the ideas expressed in this manuscript, such as incorporation of personal experience (thereby mending the Kantian and Cartesian gap), a first-person perspective will be used, where relevant.

Primacy of theory? Exploring perspectives on validity in conceptual psychometrics.

Several conceptions of validity have emphasized the contingency of validity on theory. Here we revisit several contributions to the discourse on the concept of validity, which we consider particularly influential or insightful. Despite differences in metatheory, both Cronbach and Meehl's construct validity, and Borsboom, Mellenbergh and van Heerden's early concept of validity regard validity as a criterion for successful measurement and thus, as crucial for the soundness of psychological science. Others, such as Borgstede and Eggert, regard recourses to validity as an appeal to an (unscientific) folk psychology. Instead, they advocate theory-based measurement. It will be demonstrated that these divergent positions converge in their view of psychological theory as indispensable for the soundness of psychological measurement. However, the formulation of the concept (and scope) of scientific theory differs across the presented conceptions of validity. These differences can be at least partially attributed to three disparities in metatheoretical and methodological stances. The first concerns the question of the structure of scientific theories. The second concerns the question of psychology's subject matter. The third regards whether, and if, to which extent, correlations can be indicative of causality and therefore point toward validity. These results indicate that metatheory may help to structure the discourse on the concept of validity by revealing the contingencies the concrete positions rely on.

Positionality statements in science.

The goal of this essay is to clarify positionality as an epistemological scientific concept and address related misunderstandings to help researchers assess whether statements thereof contribute to their work. Positionality statements can be useful for various research designs across scientific fields, when they are used knowingly.

Rethinking empathy: professional work with persons with PIMD.

This article combines ethnographic interpretations with analyses of the conceptual history of empathy. Moving beyond the more common notions, which often rely in psychological theories and terminologies, the conceptual-historical analyses trace its roots to 18th and 19th century notions of 'Einfühlung'. As the ethnographic work follows the professional work with two young women with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities, the article makes a fivefold argument. First, we argue that empathy is often considered a matter of individual cognition but should be rethought as an embodied process of feeling-into. Second, we argue that this process is characterised by incompleteness-and hence must acknowledge that empathy is always partial, always on the way to understanding. Third, we argue that this incompleteness forces us to think about the underlying 'connecting force', and that the conceptual history suggests that we should think about this force as a form of love. Fourth, we suggest that this 'love' is highly embodied, and that this suggests that theoretical notions of empathy should relate to notions of kinship. Fifth, we suggest that the combination of this love (affection, appreciation), embodied kinship and incompleteness suggests a final rethinking, namely the notion of empathy as a form of longing.