Leveraging media informatics for the surveillance and understanding of disease outbreaks

Syndromic disease surveillance mechanisms can be enhanced by incorporating mass media informatics for disease discourse and aberration detection and social psychology for understanding risk perceptions and the drivers of uptake and resistance. Using computerised text analysis, the coverage of the outbreak of Zika virus in Brazil in 2017/2018 in four newspapers – O Estado, O Globo, the Times of London and the New York Times – was examined and patterns were compared with Google Trends. Quantitative indicators showed waves of attention to Zika peaked in the same period but local newspapers, O Estado and O Globo, indicated lower levels of anxiety in the run up to the Olympics when compared with foreign media. The unusual surge in attention to dengue in early 2015 was an early indication to sound the alarm for extensive clinical investigations. This, together with the flagging of Zika by O Globo almost a year before the global alarm, indicates the suitability of this method for surveillance and detection of aberrations. Media attention waves are also significantly associated with Google Trends, indicating empirical equivalence. Qualitative indicators show the extra motivation over Google, World Wide Web or Twitter searches by highlighting public perceptions. Findings show the absence of a stable body of scientific knowledge at the outbreak and an ensuing crisis of understanding. Local concerns were about the economic crisis, religious beliefs, poverty and crime – all inhibitors to containment – while the global alarm was amplified by risk to tourists and athletes, and political disputes mixed with religious beliefs. Significance: This study contributes to research on the use of longitudinal media data as surrogate sources for syndromic disease surveillance. Mass media informatics provide empirical equivalence to Google Trends. Clinical and non-clinical factors contributed to public anxiety over disease epidemics. Lack of clinical knowledge at the onset of the crisis contributed to anxiety among scientists and the public.

D. Dennett and Scientific Realism: Empirical Equivalence and Evidential Support of Theoretical Statements

The paper aims to interpret the reasoning of L Laudan and J. Leplin on the inconsistency of the theses of empirical equivalence and underdetermination of the theory by data within D. Ross’s rainforest realism and D. Dennett’s real patterns concepts. Following L. Laudan and J. Leplin, the main problem is with the absolutization of the idea that the only significant form of evidential support of a theory is the empirical confirmation of its consequences (consequentialism). We believe that the conception “to save the phenomena” (P. Duhem), as a possible alternative strategy of evidential support, could be connected with the narrative type of explanation. The definition of “perspective” that defines a pattern in terms of the “information channel” concept ensures that the explanation within D. Ross’s conception is not a deductive argument, it is precisely a “story telling” that makes it possible to single out what is significant in the intended explanation. At the same time, the non-consequentialist nature of the evidential support of the pattern (that is defined with respect to the relations between data) is justified by the fact that the pattern is real only if it contains information about another pattern, reproduces only the structural characteristics of reality, and represents the probable causes of the phenomena explained via the idea of “natural classification” within “to save the phenomena” conception.

Beyond Empirical Equivalence

We wonder whether theory alone can solve problems and answer questions faced by practitioners working on the front lines of assessment innovation. Stated another way, to what degree can current theories influence the application of our work to new technology when it comes available? We are speaking as practitioners working in selection, the area in which technology has been studied most commonly in industrial-organizational (I-O) psychology (e.g., King, Ryan, Kantrowitz, Grelle, & Dainis, 2015). More specifically, we focus on the impact of mobile technology on our selection systems. We are excited for the focal article (Morelli, Potosky, Arthur, & Tippins, 2017) on theory development relative to technological advancement because much of the work we do in this area has not been discussed significantly in the literature. Our goal in this commentary is to review what we have learned about the implications of technology from our experience building and validating innovative prehire assessments.

Scientific Realism

This article endeavors to identify the strongest versions of the two primary arguments against epistemic scientific realism: the historical argument—generally dubbed “the pessimistic meta-induction”—and the argument from underdetermination. It is shown that, contrary to the literature, both can be understood as historically informed but logically valid modus tollens arguments. After specifying the question relevant to underdetermination and showing why empirical equivalence is unnecessary, two types of competitors to contemporary scientific theories are identified, both of which are informed by science itself. With the content and structure of the two nonrealist arguments clarified, novel relations between them are uncovered, revealing the severity of their collective threat against epistemic realism and its “no-miracles” argument. The final section proposes, however, that the realist’s axiological tenet “science seeks truth” is not blocked. An attempt is made to indicate the promise for a nonepistemic, purely axiological scientific realism—here dubbed “Socratic scientific realism.”