Yoruba Indigenous Medicine in Search of Justification

Yoruba Indigenous Medicine (YIM) faces the question of empirical justification. This presents a satisfying conditions of the scientific requirements for its significance and recognition. YIM is questioned for lack of empirical justification whereas Orthodox Medicine (OM) takes pride in being justified. This paper argues that if being justified is being empirically verifiable, then science, which is the foundation for OM, is also ultimately unjustified. If YIM is magical because it is not empirically justifiable then OM suffers the same fate. However, the paper further argues that if being justified is defined by being efficacious, then YIM is as justified as OM. The paper intends to show that science is ultimately empirically unjustified. Showing this disqualifies OM from alleging YIM as empirically unjustified. The paper concludes that in matter of empirical justification, both YIM and OM fall whereas in matter of efficacy they stand. Employing philosophical means, the paper holds that YIM shares the same lot with OM. Therefore, OM lacks sufficient grounds to declare YIM as unjustified.

Virtue and Contingent History

Some philosophers of science suggest that a narrow calculus of rationality—the axioms of probability calculus and the rule of conditionalization—suffices to characterize the epistemic aspect of science, including the phenomena of scientific knowledge and empirical justification. But what if a rationality constricted to a narrow calculus is a rationality inhibited in its pursuit of epistemic aims key to science? This chapter uses virtue as Aristotle understands it to develop a broader picture of rationality, a picture that likens some varieties of rationality to second-nature capacities. It discusses not only the epistemic aims that might be advanced by the exercise of epistemic second natures in the sciences but also the social conditions promoting this advancement.

Modeling the influence of external factors on students' memorization performance in general chemistry

The article provides theoretical and empirical justification for the use of multivariate methods of analysis to implement different types of models in the study of the productivity of involuntary and combined memorization by students in learning chemistry.

Subjective Safety Assessment as an Indicator of Adaptation to the Risks of Social Change: Methodological and Empirical Justification of the Research Approach

Subjective Safety Assessment as an Indicator of Adaptation to the Risks of Social Change: Methodological and Empirical Justification of the Research Approach

Selection and Characterization of Cultural Priming Stimuli for the Activation of Spanish and English Cultural Mindsets Among Hispanic/Latino Bilinguals in the United States

Cultural priming studies frequently employ non-validated, stereotypical images. Here, we empirically select images to separately evoke two cultural mindsets: Hispanic and US-American. Spanish-English bilinguals identifying as Hispanic/Latino ( N = 149) rated 50 images online for their cultural and emotional evocation. Based on relative cultural identification, cultural “delegate” (strongly US-American, strongly Hispanic, balanced bicultural) subsamples’ ratings were averaged to isolate particularly salient images. Image ratings were compared across respondents’ national origins. Ratings of seven selected pairs of content-matched Hispanic and US-American primes were compared across the full sample. High discrimination across cultural mindsets and positive emotion ratings were maintained regardless of various demographic factors. Thus, we provide empirical justification for incorporating these stimuli, individually or as sets, within cultural priming studies among Hispanic/Latino samples.

Applicability of belief measures for advertising to sponsorship in sport

PurposeWhile advertising and sponsorship are conceptually different, many studies have used the same measures for both constructs. The assumption is that respondents perceive both domains similarly. The purpose of this study was to test the invariance of the belief measures between the advertising and sponsorship measurement models across different consumer segments and to provide empirical justification for the practice.Design/methodology/approachTwo independent samples were recruited from two different consumer segments: university student consumers (n = 290) and general consumers (n = 324). This study conducted multigroup invariance tests using LISREL 8.80. The measurement and structural invariances were concerned with factor loadings (λ), factor variance and covariance (f) and error variance (θ) metrics.FindingsThe factor patterns of the belief model were generally invariant between the advertising and sponsorship models in both consumer groups. However, the respondents interpreted three items between advertising and sponsorship in different ways: one annoyance/irritation item in the generic consumer group and two falsity/no sense items in the student consumer groups.Originality/valueWhile the invariance test reveals three problematic items, the majority of items seem to be invariant, concluding that the advertising belief scale could be applicable to the sponsorship context.