Ioannidis [Why most published research findings are false. PLoS Med 2: e124 ] identifies six factors that contribute to explaining why most of the current published research findings are more likely to be false than true, and argues that for many current scientific fields, claimed research findings may often be simply accurate measures of the prevailing bias. In this article, we argue that three “hot” areas in current biological research, viz., agent-based modeling, evolutionary developmental biology, and systems biology, are especially (...) prone to the flaws. (shrink)

There are many things that philosophy of biology might be. But, given the existence of a professional philosophy of biology that is arguably a progressive research program and, as such, unrivaled, it makes sense to define philosophy of biology more narrowly than the totality of intersecting concerns biologists and philosophers (let alone other scholars) might have. The reasons for the success of the “new” philosophy of biology remain poorly understood. I reflect on what Dutch and Flemish, and, more generally, European (...) philosophers of biology could do to improve the situation of their discipline locally, regionally, and internationally, paying particular attention to the lessons to be learned from the “Science Wars.”. (shrink)

This article aims to clarify the epistemological foundations of the Freudian energetics model, starting with a historical review of the 19th century scientific context in which Freud's research lay down its roots. Beyond the physiological and anatomical references of Project for a Scientific Psychology, the physiology Freud makes reference to is in reality primarily anchored in an epistemological model derived from physics. Whilst across the Rhine, the autonomy of physiology in relation to physics was far from being accomplished, as a (...) counterpoint, in France, the revolution in physiology driven by Claude Bernard established itself autonomously from physics,. In contrast, Freud's scientific landscape is entirely dominated by the physics elevated to the rank of an ideal science. The influence of Helmholtz, who is both a medical doctor and a physicist, has a determining influence on Freud's training. The discoveries in physics at that time, in particular the formulation of the principle of 'conservation of force' - first principle of thermodynamics - will constitute the points of reference upon which Freud will elaborate his energetics model, then subsequently, the idea of economy in his metapsychology. In this way we can trace both the historic and epistemological path that led Freud from a concept based on physics, and more specifically thermodynamic energy, to an idea of nervous energy that constitutes the basis of the concept of "quantity" as it is stated as 'first fundamental idea' in Project for a Scientific Psychology. This notion will subsequently evolve, and lead Freud to the introduction of the concept of 'psychical energy,' this time in a purely metapsychological sense. (shrink)

RESUMO O objetivo deste artigo é apresentar, tomando por referência a filosofia de Henri Bergson e a fisiologia experimental de Claude Bernard, dois esforços análogos, ainda que sem relação direta em suas origens, em face de imperativos que se colocam ao sujeito do conhecimento que se ocupa da vida. Tentaremos mostrar, autorizados pelo próprio Bergson, no interior de determinada prática científica representada pela fisiologia experimental de Claude Bernard, uma atitude diante dos fatos orgânicos que não é o monopólio de uma (...) filosofia que se ocupa da verificação das condições e dos limites do conhecimento da vida, problemática que, na filosofia francesa do século XX, encontra em L’Évolution créatrice uma expressão incontornável. ABSTRACT The purpose of this article is to present, taking as reference Henri Bergson’s philosophy and Claude Bernard’s experimental physiology, two analogous efforts, despite a lack of direct relation in terms of their origins, resulting from some obligations posed to the subject of knowledge who takes life as a matter of theoretical analysis. Authorized by Bergson himself, we will try to show, within a scientific practice represented by Claude Bernard’s experimental physiology, an attitude towards organic facts that is not the monopoly of a philosophy which seeks to elucidate the conditions and limits of life knowledge, a theoretical problem which, in the twentieth century French philosophy finds in the Creative Evolution its essential expression. (shrink)