scholarly journals Measuring souls: Psychometry, female instruments, and subjective science, 1840–1910

2019 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-100
Author(s):  
Cameron B Strang
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Scientific Discourse ◽  
Reliable Data ◽  
Measuring Instrument ◽  
Immortal Soul ◽  
Anthropological Research ◽  
History Of ◽  
Spiritual Connectedness ◽  
At Home

This essay focuses on the history of psychometry, the science of soul measuring. For its founder, Dr Joseph Rodes Buchanan, the soul was simultaneously an object for anthropological research and a measuring instrument capable of revealing human character, interpreting natural history, and demonstrating the reality of an immortal soul. Psychometry taught that human souls, especially those of women, were capable of acting as instruments because they could feel the mysterious energies that people and objects radiated. Although orthodox male scientists rejected the visions of sensitive women as the antithesis of reliable data, psychometric researchers believed that the feelings of women were both the instruments and information that made their science possible. Psychometry promised to revolutionize science by insisting that sympathy and subjectivity, not detachment and objectivity, ought to undergird research. Yet as male experimenters worked to prove psychometry’s effectiveness, they almost invariably cast themselves as detached observers accurately recording the data provided by their female instruments. Thus, despite pushing for scientific reform, the methods and discourse of male psychometric experimenters eroded their field’s core arguments about connectedness and subjectivity and, instead, reinforced the notion that detachment and objectivity were essential to legitimate science. Challenges to objectivity could prove just how thoroughly it dominated scientific discourse and practice. Still, some psychometers, particularly women who practiced at home, were untroubled by the fact that their research was predicated on subjective feelings, and psychometry remained a viable pursuit among spiritualists even as it faded from the realm of science. Psychometry emerged and, ultimately, fractured amid tensions between widespread enthusiasm for sciences that emphasized spiritual connectedness and the mounting pressure to legitimize scientific knowledge through the language and practices of objectivity.

scholarly journals Editing: Problems of Terminology

2020 ◽  
pp. 173-191
Author(s):  
Piotr P. Zhauniarovich ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Book Publishing ◽  
Scientific Discourse ◽  
Professional Activity ◽  
Discipline Problems ◽  
History Of ◽  
Scientific Terms ◽  
Main Components ◽  
Definition Of

Taking into consideration the fact that editing is considered to be a field of scientific knowledge, a sphere of practical activity, and a discipline, problems of terminology appear. The aim of the research is to reveal definitions and statements that tend to take the role of terms and contain conflicting statements obstructing the scientific comprehension of terms. The research focuses on the comparison of different definitions of the term “editing” and of its types given by Russian and foreign theorists and practitioners, as well as on the analysis of new terms introduced into scientific discourse. The author touches upon various definitions of the concept of editing, considers its types as well as differences between the notions of editing and literary editing, compares the interpretations of these concepts in Russian, British, and American (editing, copyediting), Ukrainian and Polish scientific discourses, offers his vision of the problems. Textbooks and reference books do not always provide proper differences between the two main components of editorial activity—editorial analysis (evaluation) and editing. There are significant developments of Russian researchers in the direction of the history of editing ahead of the Western research. One can state that Russia has a school of editing history, and university researchers make a great contribution to its development. The author suggests adhering to the established traditions in the interpretation of editing and using it in journalism in the same sense as in book publishing, since initially it was the publishing of books that caused the need in editing as a professional activity. The result of the research demonstrates that it is impossible to refer editing as a sphere of scientific knowledge only to book publishing or philology. The author proposes his own definition of editing, tries to optimize the number of types of editing (particularly, duplication of the notions “editing” and “literary editing”, “editing” and “copyediting” is stated), and introduces a terminological combination “history of editing” into scientific discourse. The author proves that the replacement of the concepts “editing” and “editorial analysis” with such notions as “text activity” and “criticism of speech”, respectively, is not justified in scientific terms.

scholarly journals A primary care approach to the COVID-19 pandemic: clinical features and natural history of 2,073 suspected cases in the Corona São Caetano programme, São Paulo, Brazil

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabio E Leal ◽  
Maria C Mendes-Correa ◽  
Lewis F Buss ◽  
Silvia F Costa ◽  
Joao CS Bizario ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Primary Care ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Clinical Features ◽  
Older Patients ◽  
Population Based ◽  
Rt Pcr ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Care Approach ◽  
History Of ◽  
At Home

ABSTRACTBackgroundDespite most cases not requiring hospital care, there are limited community-based clinical data on COVID-19.Methods and findingsThe Corona São Caetano program is a primary care initiative offering COVID-19 care to all residents of São Caetano do Sul, Brazil. After triage of potentially severe cases, consecutive patients presenting between 13th April and 13th May 2020 were tested at home with SARS-CoV-2 reverse transcriptase (RT) PCR; positive patients were followed up for 14 days. RT-PCR-negative patients were offered SARS-CoV-2 serology. We describe the clinical features, virology and natural history of this prospective population-based cohort. Of 2,073 suspected COVID-19 cases, 1,583 (76·4%) were tested by RT-PCR, of whom 444 (28·0%, 95%CI: 25·9% - 30·3%) were positive; 604/1,136 (53%) RT-PCR-negative patients underwent serology, of whom 52 (8·6%) tested SARS-CoV-2 seropositive. The most common symptoms of COVID-19 were cough, fatigue, myalgia and headache; whereas self-reported fever, anosmia, and ageusia were most associated with a positive COVID-19 diagnosis. RT-PCR cycle thresholds were lower in men, older patients, those with fever and arthralgia, and around symptom onset. The rates of hospitalization and death among 444 RT-PCR-positive cases were 6·7% and 0·7%, respectively, with older age and obesity more frequent in the hospitalized group.ConclusionsCOVID-19 presents similarly to other mild respiratory disease in primary care. Some symptoms assist the differential diagnosis. Most patients can be managed at home.

Cause and effect: The epidemiological approach

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raj S. Bhopal
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Causal Models ◽  
Reverse Causality ◽  
Cause And Effect ◽  
Causal Thinking ◽  
History Of ◽  
Chance Error ◽  
Epidemiological Approach ◽  
Improve Health

Cause and effect understanding is the highest form of scientific knowledge. In epidemiology, demonstrating causality is difficult because of the long and complex natural history of many human diseases and because of ethical restraints. Epidemiologists should: hold the attitude that all judgements of cause and effect are tentative; understand that causal thinking demands a judgement; be alert for the play of chance, error, and bias; always consider reverse causality and confounding, utilize the power of causal models that broaden causal perspectives; apply guidelines for causality as an aid to thinking and not as a checklist; and look for corroboration of causality from other scientific frameworks for assessment of cause and effect. The ultimate aim of epidemiology is to use knowledge of cause and effect to break links between disease and its causes and to improve health. The application of erroneous knowledge has serious repercussions.

scholarly journals Conservation, Natural History and Science: the Challenge too Great, the Time too Short

2008 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 5
Author(s):  
Harry F. Recher
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Conservation Management ◽  
Management Decision ◽  
Management Decisions ◽  
Good Science ◽  
History Of ◽  
Sound Management ◽  
Recurrent Theme

Good conservation is sound management based on good science and a thorough understanding of the natural history of the organisms and systems being managed. Even doing nothing, as some advocate for wilderness, is a management decision and one which should have its foundations in science and natural history. This idea that conservation management should have a strong scientific and natural history basis is a recurrent theme of Duffy and Kraus (2008) in their analysis of conservation management in Hawaii. It is a theme that I cannot disagree with, nor can I disagree with Duffy and Kraus when they argue that natural history knowledge is not appreciated and that there is a failure to include scientific knowledge in management decisions. I don?t have to live and work in Hawaii to reach this view; not much is different in Australia.

Human Forms

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Duncan
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Victor Hugo ◽  
Historical Novels ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Victorian Era ◽  
Tom Jones ◽  
Immortal Soul ◽  
History Of ◽  
Changes Over Time

The 120 years between Henry Fielding's Tom Jones (1749) and George Eliot's Middlemarch (1871) marked both the rise of the novel and the shift from the presumption of a stable, universal human nature to one that changes over time. This book reorients our understanding of the novel's formation during its cultural ascendancy, arguing that fiction produced new knowledge in a period characterized by the interplay between literary and scientific discourses—even as the two were separating into distinct domains. The book focuses on several crisis points: the contentious formation of a natural history of the human species in the late Enlightenment; the emergence of new genres such as the Romantic bildungsroman; historical novels by Walter Scott and Victor Hugo that confronted the dissolution of the idea of a fixed human nature; Charles Dickens's transformist aesthetic and its challenge to Victorian realism; and George Eliot's reckoning with the nineteenth-century revolutions in the human and natural sciences. Modeling the modern scientific conception of a developmental human nature, the novel became a major experimental instrument for managing the new set of divisions—between nature and history, individual and species, human and biological life—that replaced the ancient schism between animal body and immortal soul. The book explores the interaction of European fiction with “the natural history of man” from the late Enlightenment through the mid-Victorian era and sets a new standard for work on natural history and the novel.

The Natural History of Neurotic Disorder in an Elderly Urban Population

1992 ◽  
Vol 160 (5) ◽  
pp. 681-686 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernadette A. Larkin ◽  
John R. M. Copeland ◽  
Michael E. Dewey ◽  
Ian A. Davidson ◽  
Paul A. Saunders ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Depressive Symptoms ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Urban Population ◽  
Community Sample ◽  
Neurotic Disorder ◽  
Predominant Symptom ◽  
General Decline ◽  
History Of ◽  
Over Time ◽  
At Home

A random community sample of 1070 subjects aged 65 years and over was interviewed at home using the GMS-agecat package and followed up three years later. Neurotic symptoms were common, but symptoms sufficient to reach ‘case’ level were much less frequent. The overall prevalence of neurotic ‘cases' was 2.4% in year 0 and 1.4% in year 3. The incidence was estimated as a minimum of 4.4 per 1000 per year over the age of 65. Women were more likely to be ‘cases' than men but not ‘subcases', and there was a general decline in prevalence with increasing age, particularly for ‘subcases'. Anxiety was the commonest neurotic subtype. After three years, ‘cases' were shown not to persist, but this did not reflect wellness. There was a tendency still to have some symptoms, but the predominant symptom appeared to change, suggesting a possible chronic neurotic disorder with changing presentation over time. Depressive symptoms were closely associated with this presentation, suggesting that depression may be an important and integral part of a general, changing neurotic disorder.

How is the moral stance related to the intentional stance and group thinking?

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannes Rakoczy
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Intentional Stance ◽  
Cognitive Capacities ◽  
Shared Intentionality ◽  
History Of ◽  
Group Thinking ◽  
Moral Stance

Abstract The natural history of our moral stance told here in this commentary reveals the close nexus of morality and basic social-cognitive capacities. Big mysteries about morality thus transform into smaller and more manageable ones. Here, I raise questions regarding the conceptual, ontogenetic, and evolutionary relations of the moral stance to the intentional and group stances and to shared intentionality.

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