For there is not a single‘parapsychological’ effect that can be repeatedly or reliably pro-duced in any laboratory suitable equipped to perform andcontrol the experiment

ave done a great deal toexplain the human capacity for language use in terms thatinvite simulation by computers.

From the standpoint of her researches, human behavior isexhaustively a function of the activities of the physical brain

Even during the trial at thepalace the wire had been found mysteriously cut, possibly by a pasha whowished it to fai

This is remarkably like the claim by those contemporary scientists who argue thatphilosophy has no role to play in science

If these partnerscontinue to elude detection, then we maynever know whether they exist.

ctim without helping. Because emresult of witnessing the victim's suffering,this suffering by helping or terminatingescaping ca

No clinical trial could go ahead unless it could recruit research sub-jects who genuinely understood the research design, including thenature and significance of randomisation or the use of placebos wherethese were planned, and could grasp the scientific, institutionaland financial context of modern medical research

we need to find proper cross sectional studies of patients clinicallysuspected of harbouring the relevant disorder, not a randomised trial

Rule for exporting the causal conclusion C causes E from an RCT. If populationsA and A’ have the same causal structure relative to ‘‘Causes E’’ and if one of the K ithat is a subset of A such that C causes E in K i is a subset of A’, then C causes E inA implies C causes E in A’ under the probabilistic theory of causality.

If one of the K ithat is a subset of A such that C causes E in K i is a subset of A’, then C causes E inA implies C causes E in A’ under the probabilistic theory of causality.But how do we know when the antecedent of this rule obtains? Recall, the beautyof the RCT is that it finesses our lack of knowledge of what exactly the confoundingfactors are that go into the descriptions K1 , ..., K m . So in general we do not evenknow how to characterise the various K i let alone know how to identify which Ki arethe ones where C is causally positive, let alone know how to figure out whether thatdescription fits some subpopulation of the target population A’.

RCTs can measurethe (average) contribution a treatment makes—if there is a stable contribution to bemeasured

One is the physics model that I have developed in my work on capacities(Cartwright 1989): Suppose the cause has some (relatively) invariant capacity; thatis, the cause always makes some fixed contribution that affects the final outcome ina systematic way.

Notice that a positive outcome does not preclude that C causes E in somesubpopulation of the experimental population and also prevents E in some othe

RCT is ideal iff all factors that can produce or eliminate a probabilisticdependence between C and E are the same in both wings except for C, which eachsubject in the treatment group is given and no-one in the control wing is given, andexcept for factors that C produces in the course of producing E, whose distributiondiffers between the two groups only due to the action of C in the treatment wing

One and the same factor may both cause and prevent a given effect by twodifferent paths. If the effect is equally strong along both paths, the effect will notbe probabilistically dependent on the cause.

The trick of course is to know when to detrendand when not, since a correlation in time between two monotonically changingquantities can always be due to one causing the othe

Sometimes quantities are probabilistically dependent with no causal explana-tion. The one widely recognized case of this is when two quantities both changemonotonically in time

When a confounding factor D can be produced by C in the process of C’sproducing E but can also occur for independent reasons, D should beconditioned on just in the cases where D is not part of the causal process bywhich C produces E

The RCT isdesigned specifically to finesse our lack of information about what other causes can

One need only adjust the numbers to construct a casein which the probability of the effect is the same with the weak cause as with thestrong cause. In cases like this the effect will be probabilistically dependent onneither the weak cause nor the strong cause

Simpson’s paradox: A probabilistic dependency (independency)between two factors in a population may turn into a probabilistic independency(dependency) within each subpopulation partitioned along the values of a factor thatis probabilistically dependent on the two origina

Conditioning on these confounding factors will breakthe correlation between them and anything else; any remaining dependenciesbetween C and E must then be due to a direct causal link between them

The idea behind the use of the partial conditional probability is that anydependencies between C and E not due to a direct causal link between them mustinstead be due to a correlation between both C and E and some further factor, oftencalled a confounding factor.

His own brilliantimprovisations, his massacres and compromises, took on a subtle,artificial logic as he bent them to fit the rules of Spanish feudal law,and the nightmare struggle with warriors fighting by a completelyalien set of rules, which ended in the destructions of a world, becamethe heroic single combat of romance.

Present-ing one’s work as innovative was seldom regarded as the best way to betaken seriously; innovations were light and insubstantial.

Among those was Richard Trevithick, who developed a high-pressure steam engine that did not need a condenser

At the height of the French Revolution, in 1793, the Museumwas given its own constitution, which entailed the transformationof the former royal Jardin des Plantes into a national possession,designated as a place of public resort and instruction in naturalhistory.

As French conquestsin Europe proceeded, newly conquered territories contributed tothe collections of the Museum. It was in this way that completeskeletons, such as the Madrid Megatherium (Figure 15.1), becameknown in Paris.

Thus,it is all the more important to develop and test risk-focusedmodels of preventive intervention in randomized experi-mental designs

the criteria by which the quality of adaptationor developmental outcome is assessed or evaluated as"good" or "OK."

In otherwords, there must be demonstrable risk

e conclusion that resilience is made of ordinaryrather than extraordinary processes offers a more positiveoutlook on human development and adaptation, as well asdirection for policy and practice aimed at enhancing thedevelopment of children at risk for problems and psycho-pathology

chil-dren learn to speak and in which anthropologists and linguists learn theunknown language of a newly discovered tribe.

endeitherarevacuous—onedoesnotknowwhenandhowtoapplythem—orelsecanbecriticized ongroundsverysimilartothosewhichledtotheminthefirstplace

which,asasideeffect,leadstodevelopmentswhichlateroncanbeinterpretedassolutionstounrealizedproblems.

Discoverymaybeirrationalandneednotfollow anyrecognizedmethod.Justifica-tion,on theotherhand,or,tousetheHolyWordofadifferent school,criticism,startsonlyafter thediscoverieshavebeenmadeandproceedsinanorderlyway

t is the principle: anything goes.

And the initial playful activity isan essential presupposition of the final act of understanding.*

hat interests, forces, propaganda, brainwashing techniques play amuch greater role in the growth of our knowledge and, a fortiori, of sci-ence than is commonly believed can also be seen from an analysis of therelation between idea and action.

Eventhemostpuritanicalrationalistwillthenbeforcedtostopreasoningandtouse,say,propagandaandcoer-cion,notbecausesomeofhis-reasons have ceasedtobevalid,butbe-causethepsychological conditionswhichmakethemeffective,andcap-ableofinfluencingothers,havedisappeared

or the gradual emergence ofthe wave theory of light occurred either because some thinkers decided notto be bound by certain “obvious” methodological rules or because theyunwittingly broke them.

it“maim|{s]bycompression,likeaChineselady’sfoot,everypartofhumannaturewhichstandsoutprominently,andtendstomakeapersonmarkedlydissimilarinoutline”

sely it was that led to imoves will succeed in the futare.

but the blind assumption that Western ideasnology are intrinsically good and can thereforewithout any consultation of local condi

ling," and that socie"practices a social tyranny more formidable than manylitical oppression, since, though not usually upheld by spenalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetratindeeply into the details of life, and ensla

ence, many of Mill's points in On Liberty areillustrated through explicitly religious cases, in which there was nopromise of factual evidence to which appeal could

beneficiaries of his defensesof unpopular views as the observers of the interactions. Mil

ites: "My use of examples from astrology shmisunderstood. Astrology bores me to tears. However it wby scientists, Nobel Prize winners among them, withoutsimply by a show of authority and in this respec

ponents ofall important truths do not exist, it is indispensable to imagine them,and supply them with the strongest arguments which the most skilfuldevil's advocate can conjure up" (p

opinions, . . . every opinembodies somewhat of the portion of truth which theopinion omits, ought to be considered precious, withamount of error and confusion that trut

o refuse a hearing to an opinion, because they are sure that it isfalse, is to assume that their certainty is the same thing as absolutecertainty. All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility

Thus, Feyerabend's slogan was essentially a reductio against a cer-tain form of rationali

It can be achieved by protecting the tremendous imagination which childrenpossess and by developing to the full the spirit of contradiction that exists inthem.

Chinese science advanced and Westernscience learned from it.

t is also true that phenomena such as telekinesis and acupunc-ture may eventually be absorbed into the body of science and may therefore becalled ‘‘scientific.’?

hich are yet based on an ideology that is radically different from the ideologyof Western science.

ppliedresolutely,Popperiancriteriawould eliminatescience without replacingitbyanything comparable.

Theyserveascorrectives(afterall,wemayhavemadethewrongchoice)andtheyalsoexplainthecontentof thepreferredviews(weunderstandrelativity betterwhenweunderstandthestructureofitscompetitors;weknowthefullmeaningoffreedomonlywhenwehaveanideaoflifeinatotalitarianstate, ofitsadvantages—andtherearemany advantages—aswellasofitsdisadvantages).

Butitmaystillbebetterthananyothertheorythatisavailableatthetime.Itmayinfactbethebestlousytheorythereis.

If Truth,as conceived by some ideologists, conflicts with freedom, then we have a

So it is easy to twist matters and to change allegiance totruth in one’s everyday affairs into allegiance to the Truth of an ideologywhich is nothing but the dogmatic defence of that ideology.

Heretics in science are still made to sufferfrom the most severe sanctions this relatively tolerant civilization has to offer.

Pursue this investigation further and you will see thatscience has now become as oppressive as the ideologies it had once to fight.

society at large the judgement of the scientist isreceived with the same reverence as the judgement of bishops and cardinalswas accepted not too long ago.

There is no attempt to wakenthe critical abilities of the pupil so that he may be able to see things in perspec-tive.

tyrant who must be overthrown, and any falsehood that can aid us in the over-throw of this tyrant is to be welcomed.

rejecting the idea that sex differentiation is based on tone seed over the other in the process of forming genitals,that sex differentiation must be connected to a more comp(like heat) that would affect the

" However, if the woman complaining of light or no mensesis identified by the physician as a masculine woman, the physician wouldknow that she was in no risk of uterine suffocation, because masculinewomen normally have no seed and light or no m

n alRazT's view, weak masculinity was responsible for the odd positioning ofthe spermatic vessels leading to this condition. In his book on coitus, 'Isaibn Massah explained that these individuals with weak masculinity wouldprefer to be penetrated and not to penetrate and that they could achieveejaculation only if penetrated.

ns. At the same time, these same terms (masculine women,feminine men, etc.) were also used to describe gendered categories of socialbehavi

n. Instead, these terms refer to medicalized sex categorieswhere these individuals manifest their weak masculinity or femininity onlythrough specific diseases and in particular incidences in life, not in theirsocial performan

. While this viewregards the two sets of organs as essentially the same and draws similaritiesbetween them, we do not describe this as a one-sex mod

This view of the common origins of similar human organs,itself easily to equivalence in the reproductive organs of malecannot be described as a belief in one sex, just as arguments amon origins of humans and animals cannot be described as a bspec

a.6" Rather, he isusing a familiar organ to explain the appearance of a less familiar one—-anargumentative technique much like his later uterus-penis compa

his unique divisiondemonstrates Ibn Sina's conviction of the qualitative difference betweenthe male and female organs.

al-RazT rejected this idea on two grounds,both empirical and theoretica

Moreover, Ibn STna still located the origins of this"pseudosperm" in the female testicles;44 these, he believed, were smaller,rounder versions of male testicles and were located on both sides of thevagina connected to the uterus by lig

differences in heat. Followinexplained that a male seed coming from the right testicthe right horn of the uterus would produce a male; a seedleft testicle moving to the uterine left horn would producother variations were possible. A seed coming from the rigmoving to the left horn would produce a feminine male, wfrom the left side to the right horn would

d of both of them. 4 Astiation, al-Tabarl reported two opinions. The first, which hHippocrates, explained that if the two seeds were strong, tbe male, and if they were weak, the fetus would be femopinion was attributed to Aristotle: if the seeds were "mos'alayha al-hamrah\," the fetus would be male, and if thcold," it would be female, a view that is comparable to Galeas laid out in hi

uantity as opposed to strength or quality, writing, "If the woman's seedwas more [plentiful] than the man's, the child will resemble his mother."However, he attributed sex differentiation to the relative strength of thegenerative seed, which is composed of the mixture of male and female seedsduring copulation: "Based on the strength and weakness of the seed, aremales and females [differentiated]. If the woman's seed is strong, it willgenerate a male, and if it is weak, it will generate a female. Similarly, if themale seed is weak, it generates a female, and if it is strong, it generates amale. [In general,] if the seed is strong, it generates males, and if it is weak,it generates females

ecause the difference in the natures of the two parents was so apparent, the influence oftheir seeds on the sex outcome of offspring could be detected with ease,and sex differentiation could be explained with reference to the dominanceof one seed over the other.

n. Both types of seed possessed the capacity to in-formthe form) or be in-formed by (passively receive the forTherefore, the role played by either seed in the generationnot prescribed by their i

the two seeds: "Femininity or maaccording to the dominance \jjbalabah\ of one of the twother in quantity and quality, until one of them becomtransforms [muhil\ and the other the one tha

n below, a number of terms used by medescribe particular sex categories were also used in literarygious discourses to describe social practices, comportmenbehaviors and performance—or what

Sex difference was as cruciala part of premodern mentality as itis ofour own, though each historical epochexpressed this difference in language ap-propriate to its own cosmology.

he misogyny that underlies Westernmedical writing on sexiality is indeedstaggering, and Laqueur has document-ed it with sympathy and passion, but thisshould not blind us to other forms ofsexual intolerance, most notably the ho-mophobia with which it was so frequentlyassociated.

But.his interpretation forces him to ignorethe vast bedy-of theological, legal, andmedical theory in the -high Middle Agesand: Renaissance that “set--procreative,“héterosexual sex at the heart of the natu-yal universe and-associated. sodomy withheresy, as-4 Yejection of the physical:and.metaphysical order created by God.

While the similarities lent unity to theuniverse, the differences assured its vari-ety and acted as signs of God's infinitecreati

dense web of correspondences linkingnot only the male and female genitals,but also the realms of animal, vegetable,and mineral.

The problem is that Laqueur seemsunwilling to accept that the metaphysicalcategories and distincons of classicaland Renaissance writers were just as realto them as our-more. material ones are tous.

With respect to the. “middleground” of the spectrum, there wassome disagreement. Asserting the in-commensurability of male and female,Aristotelians tended to claim that it wasnecessarily and absohitely empty; perfecthermaphrodism was impossible, and sexchanges like Germain Garnier’s wereonly apparent. Anti-Aristotelians such asParé, writing in the full flush of theFrench Hippocratic revival of the mid-sixteenth century, held that such caseswere, theoretically possible, if extremelyrare

Laqueur glosses them tomean that “the vagina really is a pestis,and the uterus is a scrotum’ ’—a conchsion that would certainly have puzziedBerengario and his contemporaries. Sim-arly, Laqueur claims repeatedly that be-fure the cighteeuth contwy the fenidereproductive organs were referred toonly by the names of their mate ana-logues. yet he himself relers to a passagein which Berengario calls the foreskin bythe standard Latin word for the femalelabia, and he reproduces a woodcut fromBerengario‘s anatomy that identifies thescrotum as an “inverted wontb.*

ristotle, in fact, together with the Ar-istotelian theorists who dominated.Euro-pean thinking on-sexuality between 1250and..1550, expounded a two-sex modelmore. sharply delineated in ‘many re-spects. thar ary modern ‘theory. For..thése.writers, women’s séxual functionwas-in.no way parallel to men's. Womenwere essentially incubators: they provid-éd.a-place for the fetus to develop and |“thé matter to nourish it, while. male se-men contributed the. formal. principle,or soul.

There is, in truth, nosingle early Western model of sex andsexual difference. Laqueur's ‘‘one-sexmodel” is a hybrid of individual andsometimes mutually contradictory: fea-“ges assembled from the two dominantand. fundamentally incompatible radi-tions of-early writing on the subject; cheAristotelian aid the Hippocratic/Galen-ic.

ot in Aris-totle, not in Galen, not in Paré—although sexual difference was definedsomewhat differently than in the nine-teenth century.

In our paradigm, subjects were asked to detectchanges in speed. They therefore had to pay attention to thedisplacement of the dots over time, calling upon both spatialand temporal attention

On the basis of our data alone it is not possible toprove that the prefrontal cortex modulates motion-dependentresponses in posterior cortical regions. However, togetherwith lesion data assigning an executive role to the prefrontalcortex this hypothesis may be more tenable

However, the posteriorparietal cortex, as the main target of modulation, has richreciprocal connections with V5, the middle superior temporalregion and V3a in the primate (Cavada and Goldman-Rakic,1989), which themselves project back to striate cortex.Therefore, we suggest that activation of prestriate and striatecortical areas is modulated reciprocally in a chained corticalhierarchy. This idea would also explain the gradual decay ofmodulation from the posterior parietal cortex to V5 or V3a,and from there to V1/V2, as demonstrated for a single subjectin Fig. 5

This was alsodemonstrated by our data, on comparing moving andstationary dots, where V3a shows a significant differentialresponse. However, to our knowledge, this is the first reportof attentional modulation of V3a activity either in the primateor the human.

which is consistent with our assumption thatdetecting changes in speed increases attention to motion.

Indicating changes online by a buttonpress was also dismissed because those movements andassociated preparation would not have allowed any sensibleinterpretation of premotor responses known to be involvedin attentional processing (Rizzolatti et al., 1987

The densityof the stimulus in the centre, the high speed and the fact thatthe dots were indistinguishable from each other, makes thisexplanation unlikely

Highly significant activations were foundat the occipitotemporal junction bilaterally. These regionswere very close to the co-ordinates of V5 as reported byWatson et al. (1993). This comparison also revealed motionsensitivity in the middle occipital gyrus. This location isclose to area V3/V3a as shown by DeYoe et al. (1996) andTootell et al. (1997). The motion sensitivity of this areahowever, suggests area V3a rather than V3 (Tootell et al.,1997). We will therefore refer to this area of activation asV3a in the remainder of this paper (Table 3).

The motion after-effect varied considerably over subjects(between 5 and 22 s). The analysis of the whole group datashowed a highly significant (P , 0.01) difference betweenthe ‘attention’ and ‘no attention’ conditions (t(8) 5 6.2;paired t test). Individual analyses (t tests) showed a significant(P , 0.05) prolongation of the motion after-effect afterthe ‘attention’ conditions compared with the ‘no attention’conditions in six out of nine subjects. The remaining threesubjects showed a trend (0.1 . P . 0.06) (Table 2)

Before scanning, subjects were exposed to five 30-s trialsof the stimulus. The speed of the moving dots was changedfive times during each trial. Subjects were asked to indicateany change in speed. Changes in speed were graduallyreduced over the five trials, until a 1% change was presentedon the last occasion

In the‘attention’ condition the subjects were asked to ‘detectchanges’ and during the ‘no attention’ condition the subjectswere instructed to ‘just look’.

In all conditionsthe subjects looked at a fixation point (size 0.3°) in themiddle of a screen. Images were back-projected onto thescreen from an LCD video-projector. In conditions withvisual motion, 250 white dots (size 0.1°) moved radiallyfrom the fixation point in random directions towards theborder of the screen, at a constant speed of 4.7°/s, wherethey vanished. The active screen area was circular with adiameter of 17°. The screen refresh rate was set to 67 Hz.

Theywere scanned during four runs, each lasting 5 min 22 s. Ineach run, 100 image volumes were acquired. Each conditionlasted 32.2 s giving 10 volumes per condition.

Seven young, right-handed normal, healthy subjects (twomale and five female)

The volume acquired covered the wholebrain except for the lower half of the cerebellum and theinferior most part of the temporal lobes (32 slices; slicethickness 3 mm, giving a 9.6-cm vertical field of view).

(TE 5 40 ms; 90 ms per image; 64 3 64 pixels:area 19.2 3 19.2 cm) w

In the above example onlythe velocity of visually presented moving dots is salient,their colour (red) is less important. I

essentially in the world of ideas

One may, of course, show upthe degeneration of a research programme, but it is only constructivecriticism which, with the help of rival research programmes, can achievereal successes; and dramatic spectacular results become visible only withhindsight and rational reconstruction

Individualpsychology is now replaced by social psychology; imitation of the greatscientists by Submission to the collective wisdom of the Community.

The new paradigm brings a totally new rationality. There are nosuper-paradigmatic Standards

Only those scientistshave to rivet their attention on anomalies who are either engaged in trial-and-error exercises4 or who work in a degenerating phase of a researchprogramme when the positive heuristic ran out of steam

We may appraise research programmes, even after their 'elimination', fortheir heuristic power: howmany new facts did they produce, howgreat was'their capacity to explain their refutations in the course of their growth'?

Moreover, itoccasionally happens that when a research programme gets into a degener-ating phase, a little revolution or a creative shift in its positive heuristicmay push it forward again.

A 'modeV is a set of initial conditions (possibly together withsome of the observational theories) which one knows is bound to be re-placed during the further development of the programme, and one evenknows, more or less, how. This shows once more how irrelevant 'refuta-tions' of any specific variant are in a research programme: their existenceis fully expected, the positive heuristic is there as the strategy both forpredicting (producing) and digesting them

Many of them were beautifullyexplained (qualitatively) by this model, many were not. It was then that hestarted to work on bulging planets, rather than round planets, etc

This change was not motivated by any observation (the data didnot suggest an 'anomaly' here) but by a theoretical difficulty in developingthe programme.

the positive heuristicconsists of a partially articulated set of suggestions or hints on how tochange, develop the 'refutable variants' of the research-programme, howto modify, sophisticate, the 'refutable' protective belt

wemaintain that if and when the programme ceases to anticipate novel facts,its hard core might have to be abandoned

that each step constitute a consistently progressivetheoreticalproblemshift. All we need in addition to this is that at least everynow and then the increase in content should be seen to be retrospectivelycorroborated: the programme as a whole should also display an inter-mittently progressive empirical sh

n a research programme wemay be frustrated by a long series of 'refutations' before ingenious andlucky content-increasing auxiliary hypotheses turn a chain of defeats—withhindsight—into a resounding success story, either by revising some false'facts* or by adding novel auxiliary hypotheses

The negative heuristic of the programme forbids us to direct themodus tollens at this 'hard core\ Instead, we must use our ingenuity to artic-ulate or even invent 'auxiliary hypotheses*, which form a protective beltaround this core, and we must redirect the modus tollens to the

But what I have primarily in mind is not science as a whole, but ratherparticular research programme

he most important such series in the growth of science arecharacterized by a certain continuity which connects their members. Thiscontinuity evolves from a genuine research programme adumbrated at thestart. The programme consists of methodological rules: some teil us whatpaths of research to avoid {negative heuristic), and othcrs what paths topursue (positive heuristic

For the verdict of the appeal court is not infallibleeither.

It is not that we propose a theory and Naturemay shout NO; rather, we propose a maze of theories, and Nature mayshout INCONSISTENT

Thus the rational choice of the logical form of a theory depends onthe State of our knowledge; for instance, a metaphysical 'all-some' State-ment of today may become, with the change in the level of observationaltheories, a scientific 'all-statement' tomorrow

Thus we do not eliminate a (syntactically) metaphysical theory if itclashes with a well-corroborated scientific theory, as naive falsificationismsuggests. We eliminate it if it produces a degenerating shift in the longrun and there is a better, rival, metaphysics to replace it.

we regard all ingredients as problem-atic in the light of the conflicting accepted basic Statement and try toreplace all of thcm. If we succeed in replacing some ingredient in a 'pro-gressive' way (that is, the replacement has more corroborated empiricalcontent than the original), we call it 'falsified

Thus sophisticated falsification is a slower but possiblysafer process than naive falsification

alsification cannot 'compelthe theorist to search for a better theory', 3 simply because falsificationcannot precede the better theory

The problemfever of science is raised by proliferation of rival theories rather thancounterexamples or anomalies

for the methodological falsificationists it is the—rather rare—corroborating instances of the excess information which are the crucialones

This shows that 'crucial counter-evidence'—or 'crucial experiments'—can be recognized as such among thescores of anomalies only with hindsight, in the light of some supersedingtheory

But, of course, if falsification depends on the emergence of better theories,on the invention of theories which anticipate new facts, then falsification isnot simply a relation between a theory and the empirical basis, but amultiple relation between competing theories, the original 'empiricalbasis', and the empirical growth resulting from the competition

apply the term 'scientific' to one Single theory is a category mistak

Then, of course, what we appraise is aseries of theories rather than isolated theorie

Popper calls suchinadmissible auxiliary hypotheses ad hoc hypotheses, mere linguisticdevices, 'conventionalist stratagems

forcing the chosen theory into logical Isolation, inwhich it becomes a sitting target for the attack of test-experiments

or the sophisticated falsificationist ascientific theory T is falsified if and only if another theory V has beenproposed with the following characteristics: (1) T' has excess empiricalcontent over T: that is, it predicts novel facts, that is, facts improbablein the light of, or even forbidden, by T; 4 (2) T' explains the previoussuccess of T, that is, all the unrefuted content of T is included (withinthe limits of observational error) in the content of T"; and (3) some of theexcess content of T' is corroborated

Neurath's muddled argument, that the falsification and ensuing elimina-tion of a hypothesis may turn out to have been 'an obstacle in the progressof science',3 carries no weight as long as the only alternative he seems tooffer is chaos

Decisions however may lead us disastrously astray

The plight is mostdramatic when he has to make a decision about ceteris paribus clauses

If the scientist shrinks back from such bold decisions he will'never benefit from experience'

Yet the decision to 'accept1 a ceteris paribus clause is a very risky onebecause of the grave consequences it implie

If many of them are refuted, the ceteris paribusclause will be regarded as well-corroborated

he must decide whether to take the refutation also as arefutation of the specific theory

No finite number of 'observations' is enough to 'falsify'such a theory.

Yet the methodological falsificationist advises that exactly this is to bedone.

Indeed, if this 'empirical basis' clashes with a theory, the theorymay be called 'falsified', but it is not falsified in the sense that it is disprove

The simplest such control is to repeat the experimen

On the other hand, calling the reports of our human eye'observationaP only indicates that we 'rely* on some vague physiologicaltheory of human vision

Theydescribe planets that neither the human eye nor optical instruments canreach. Their truth-value is arrived at by an 'experimental technique*

In spite of this he 'applies' these theories,he regards them in the given context not as theories under test but asunproblematic background knowledge 'which we accept (tentatively) asunproblematic while we are testing the theory

3 Such aStatement may be called an 'observational' or 'basic' Statement, but only ininverted commas

then the theory loses its original simplicityand has to be replaced.

This conservative con-ventionalism has, however, the disadvantage of making us unable to get outof our self-imposed prisons, once the first period of trial-and-error is overand the great decision take

may decide not to aliow the theory to be refute

But revolutionary activistsbelieve that conceptual frameworks can be developed and also replacedby new, better ones; it is we who create our 'prisons' and we can also,critically, demolish them

pessimistic Kantians thought that the real world is for ever unknowablebecause of this prison, while optimistic Kantians thought that God createdour conceptual framework to fit the world

But the recognition that not only the theoretical but all the propositionsin science are fallible, means the total collapse of all forms of dogmaticjustificationism as theories of scientific rationality

A proposi-tion might be said to be scientific only if it aims at expressing a causalconnection

But then the dogmatic falsificationist relegates the most importantscientific theories on his own admission to metaphysics where rational dis-cussion—consisting, by his Standards, of proofs and disproofs—has noplace, since a metaphysical theory is neither provable nor disprovable

And the dogmatic falsificationist cannot possibly claim that suchuniversal non-existence Statements belong to the empirical basis: that theycan be observed and proved by experience

uch theories never alone contradict a 'basic' Statement

. Either yet anotheringenious auxiliary hypothesis is proposed or . . . the whole story isburied in the dusty volumes of periodicals and the story never mentionedagain

If they arefallible then clashes between theories and factual propositions are not'falsifications' but merely inconsistencie

For there are and can be no sensations unim-pregnated by expectations and therefore there is no natural (i.e. psycholo-gical) demarcation between observational and theoretical propositions

of knowledge are bound to contain a psychology ofobservatio

It was not Galileo's—pure, untheo-retical—observations that confronted Aristotelian theory but rather Galileo's'observations' in the light of his optical theory that confronted the Aris-totelians' 'observations' in the light of their theory of the heavens.

factual or observational (or basic) then it is true

The first assumption is that there is a natural, psychological borderlinebetween theoretical or speculative propositions on the one hand andfactual or observational (or basic) propositions on the other.

Dogmatic falsificationists draw a sharp demarcation between thetheoretician and the experimenter: the theoretician proposes, the experi-menter—in the name of Nature—dispose

the proposition must be unconditionally rejecte

empirical counterevidence is the one and onlyarbiter which may judge a theory

it denies that the certainty of the empirical basis can be transmitted

that under verygeneral conditions all theories have zero probability

For Popper scientific change is rational or at least rationally reconstruct-ible and falls in the realm of the logic of discovery. For Kuhn scientificchange—from one 'paradigm* to another—is a mystical conversion whichis not and cannot be governed by rules of reason and which falls totallywithin the realm of the {social) psychology of discovery. Scientific change isa kind of religious change

Criticism of the dominant theory and proposals of new theories are onlyallowed in the rare moments of 'crisis'.

rom criticism to commitment marks the point where progress—and'normal* science—begin

n. But while according to Popper science is Revolutionin permanence', and criticism the heart of the scientific enterprise, accord-ing to Kuhn revolution is exceptional and, indeed, extra-scientific, andcriticism is, in 'normal' times, anathema

Belief maybe a regrettably unavoidable biological weakness to be kept under the con-trol of criticism: but commitment is for Popper an outright crim

Boldness in conjectures on the one hand and austerityin refutations on the other: this is Popper's recipe.

We are now in a mental framework in whichmenstruation, from being conceptualized as an element of similarity be-tween the sexes, has come to stand as a marker of their difference

We all know that in this period the ancient providential notion of nature—so well expressed by the image of her healing power—was rejected andreplaced with a notion of nature as a set of mechanical laws

‘‘if a woman has her periods naturally and regularly, phle-botomy is not necessary.’’

This ‘‘crisis made by urine’’ is described by Santorio as analogous tomenstruation

The same authors who reported cases of menstruating men were alsovery keen on describing instances of ‘‘unusual pathways’’ of menstruationin female bodies

Furthermore, a negativenotion of menstruation (or any other periodic bleeding) as divine punish-ment did not make any sense from a medical point of view, because cur-rent doctrine held a strongly positive view of menstruation as beneficial tohealth.

nd so, the conversation continuing in jest, he began to laugh and saidthat he did not agree with this,

Quiñones admittedthe possibility of an alternative and natural explanation of this phenome-non: in consequence of their diet, the Jews could be disproportionatelyafflicted by the disease called hemorrhoids.

Thismedieval belief was ominously associated, in the Middle Ages and still inthe early modern period, with the accusations of ritual infanticide leveledat some Jewish groups

Much more oftenwhat is stressed is the link between vicarious menstruation (hemorrhoidalor otherwise) and positive traits such as longevity and fertility

And yet these stories seem to be told without any embarrassment, oftenidentifying the menstruating men by name and social rank.