Compiled and Introduced
by
Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems
“Exploring Every Corner of the Cosmos in Search of Knowledge”
Unifying the Cosmos in a Grain of Sand”
"It would be nice to know the criteria by which scientific discoveries are vetted and accepted. I know how we do so in my field, African Literary Studies and Cinema Studies…"
Kenneth Harrow on the USAAfrica Dialogues Series Google Group
Contexts of Scientific and Technological Discovery and Creation
The "criteria by which scientific discoveries are vetted and accepted" within the globally dominant structure of knowledge and its institutional expressions, of which modern science is a part, are straightforward.
This epistemic system being globally dominant, these procedures are accepted by those trained in the specialised skills in various disciplines and the laypeople who accept these conventions. The essence of the procedures are broadly uniform across disciplines, what differs is the specific interpretation of these procedures in various disciplines.
The essence of the procedures is mutual assessment by anyone with the universally acknowledged body of skills to make this assessment.
One may describe scientific and technological discovery and creation as taking place within two major contexts. These contexts are represented by the institutions that define the globally dominant structure of knowledge and those outside it.
The Metaphysical and Epistemic Configuration of the Globally Dominant Knowledge System
The globally dominant structure of knowledge is defined by the metaphysical and epistemic forms that became dominant in Europe after the 17th century Scientific Revolution. This structure of knowledge is centred in understanding reality through methods that may be assessed by anyone who has developed the necessary skills.
This principle applies across all disciplines, including those that privilege subjectivity, such as the arts, in the sense that even the subjective has to be open to evaluation as to its contribution to knowledge in a particular context.
Wellek and Warren seemed to have addressed this question in some depth in relation to literature in their Theory of Literature while Hans-Georg Gadamer on aesthetics in general is described as privileging the subjective in Truth and Method, but, in relation to Gadamer's background in intellectual culture from Kant to Heidegger, I expect he will be concerned to address the idea of the subjective as a domain of knowledge both private and universal, therefore open to evaluation, to a degree.
Procedures for Disseminating and Authorizing Knowledge within the Globally Dominant Knowledge System
This structure of knowledge privileges the public dissemination of information through organs that may be accessed by the public and where informed members of the public may evaluate the information provided. These disseminatory organs privilege communication in natural language as well as the artificial languages of the sciences, languages which the system's institutions are dedicated to teaching.
A discovery that understands itself as operating within this context would be presented in what is called an academic journal, a gathering place for experts in the field to discuss ideas presented by fellow experts.
Along with this process, it is also relevant to have a new process for creating something, a drug or even a mechanical object, registered with a patent office. The patent office ensures that you have sole rights to monetary gains from this process for a particular number of years, so you may reap financial rewards of your labour.
This patent office may theoretically be located anywhere in the world. The patent office also hires experts to assess the claims you make in your presentation of a new idea. Albert Einstein, one of the greatest innovators in modern thought, worked in one such office in Berne, Switzerland when he wrote his three epochal scientific papers published in 1905.
Procedure for Developing and Authorizing Medical Discoveries and Creations in the Globally Dominant Knowledge System
Various contributions from Nigerian institutions and commentators in the wake of a claim to an AIDS cure attributed this year to Prof. Ibeh of the University of Benin sum up the specifics of these procedures with reference to science and a focus on medicine.
NAFDAC: National Agency for Food and Drug Administration:
"There is a laid down protocol for determining efficacy and safety of new medicines and this must be strictly adhered to by all."
University of Benin:
“There are protocols and procedures. Going from stage to stage, we give it
1. clinical trials
2. which will take it to the Federal Ministry of Health to do [further] clinical trials [ and many other procedures]
3. We will equally have to take it to NAFDAC, and many other things have to be done before you come out with your claims,
4. and even take it to the World Health Organization
Specifics:
Ethics Procedures at the Initial Research Stage
Ibrahim Musa
[Such research must begin with] Institution review board/ethical clearance committee[approval]very pertinent/cardinal in the field of Medicine; where humans are the subject of the research.
No serious journal will publish an article that has humans as subjects without getting a copy of the ethical clearance from [the] review board.
Assessment of Research Results by Experts
Abba Gumel-Professor of Mathematics
1. Academics... subject their work to the rigorous scrutiny of their peers...and, if accepted, these breakthroughs are published in top quality journals.
2. Breakthroughs in medical sciences...are published in the top medical sciences journals, such as Nature, Science, PNAS, Lancet, PloS Medicine etc.
3. [After] preclinical studies getting published for the scientific community to scrutunised the findings...a drug goes in to clinical trials
Patenting
Ado Abubakar sums up the initial stages and points to the subject of patents
1.It will be good to know the IRB processes [Institution review board/ethical clearance committee] and approval followed
2.What is the reproducibility of their work
3. When are they or have they started the process/ of patency?
Joseph Igietseme-Professor of Medicine
1. ...initial experimental results will enable a scientist or inventor to file a patent; and the filler can broaden the scope of the results as much as allowed by the patent filling office.
2. What most scientists do is to file a patent and later publish the results; that secures the patent such that nobody else can file patent ownership when the results are published or publicized.
Folorunso Oludayo Fasina, Veterinary Science academic
1. You submit your material for a patent and you send an accompanied document for publication in a reputable journal, whichever comes first, the other work is still protected.
2. ....once the claim has been submitted by you and is under investigation, nobody will be permitted to submit same until your work is proved or thrown out. Once you have the patent...you are in millions (or billions in the case of HIV) because you've got 10 full years to make money unabated. All pharmaceutical companies will be courting you.
Stevek
[A] Patent....means that anyone that uses the knowledge after the patent is in place must do so with the permission of the patent holder - usually by paying the patent holder - or face a lawsuit for damages.
For drugs or medications, the patented drug is under the brand of the patent holder and no one else can manufacture it under a brand other than the patent holder's without permission or authorization by the patent holder. The drugs or medications revert to 'generic' after the patent period has expired. After this time, the drugs or medication can be manufactured under any brand without permission or authorization.
Patent registration is [much] different [from] making a new song and publishing it to claim ownership.
The requirement for patent granting include uniqueness (the product has never, formally, existed prior) and validation (the product is real, proof of doing what it claims to do and is different from other products that do the same thing, and proof of transparent reproducibility).
Summation
Segun Olude
Science wants to measure and test, apply and repeat in a consistent manner, even if there are side effects and contraindications.
I think it all centres around measurable, repeatable, portable results...[proof] that any claim is repeatable, and medications can be administered in measurable doses
Lets address medicine specifically. If there is an outbreak of influenza, Western science is able to administer exactly the same medicine and dosage to thousands of people at the same time..., they can administer specifically designed solutions that can be repeated over and over [thereby developing] solutions that can help millions of people at once.
Philosophy of Science
The subject of criteria for acceptance of scientific achievement and the implications of this is perennially explored in the philosophy of science, as represented, for example by the work of Karl Popper, exemplified by The Logic of Scientific Discovery, by Paul Feyerabend in Against Method, by Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and
more recent work, such as that of Tian Yu Cao, exemplified by Conceptual Developments of Twentieth Century Field Theories (a superb introduction accessible to the layperson) and his contributions to Conceptual Foundations of Quantum Field Theory ( characteristically lucid and yet conceptually and yet poetically rigorous introduction and first chapter) and possibly James Gleick's Chaos.
Sources
The message lists of the Nigerian centred listerves
NaijaObserver, NaijaPolitics,
NIgerianWorldForum, talkhard, nigerianid, edo-nationality, afenmai@yahoogroups.com, nigerianbiomedicalandlifescientists, Raariga
under various threads beginning with the thread "UNIBEN Prof announces alleged cure for HIV/AIDS" of January 8, 2012 at thenigerianbiomedicalandlifescientists yahoo group
12-13th January 2013
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