The eye of the beholder: how do public health researchers interpret regression coefficients? A qualitative study.

BACKGROUND: Calls for improved statistical literacy and transparency in population health research are widespread, but empirical accounts describing how researchers understand statistical methods are lacking. To address this gap, this study aimed to explore variation in researchers' interpretations and understanding of regression coefficients, and the extent to which these statistics are viewed as straightforward statements about health. METHODS: Thematic analysis of qualitative data from 45 one-to-one interviews with academics from eight countries, representing 12 disciplines. Three concepts from the sociology of scientific knowledge and science studies aided analysis: Duhem's Paradox, the Agonistic Field, and Mechanical Objectivity. RESULTS: Some interviewees viewed regression as a process of discovering 'real' relationships, while others indicated that regression models are not direct representations, and others blended these perspectives. Regression coefficients were generally not viewed as being mechanically objective, instead interpretation was described as iterative, nuanced, and sometimes depending on prior understandings. Researchers reported considering numerous factors when interpreting and evaluating regression results, including: knowledge from outside the model, whether results are expected or unexpected, 'common-sense', technical limitations, study design, the influence of the researcher, the research question, data quality and data availability. Interviewees repeatedly highlighted the role of the analyst, reinforcing that it is researchers who answer questions and assign meaning, not models. CONCLUSIONS: Regression coefficients were generally not viewed as complete or authoritative statements about health. This contrasts with teaching materials wherein statistical results are presented as straightforward representations, subject to rule-based interpretations. In practice, it appears that regression coefficients are not understood as mechanically objective. Attempts to influence conduct and presentation of regression models in the population health sciences should be attuned to the myriad factors which inform their interpretation.

What does the French public consider to be a conflict of interest for medical researchers?

Conflicts of interests have been at the core of public debate over health and medicine for decades. Social scientists have analysed the diversity of definitions of this label as well as the policies put in place to regulate the relationships between medical researchers and various actors such as private corporations. But little attention has been paid to the way the public define and use this label. In this article, we assess what the French public consider to be a conflict of interest for medical researchers. We draw on the data from a questionnaire-based survey conducted with a representative sample of the French population in December 2021 (n = 2022) where we asked respondents to decide whether different situations constituted a conflict of interest or not. These situations concerned medical researchers' relationships with economic actors but also with politicians and the media, with or without financial compensation for the researcher. We identified three main group profiles in terms of respondents' conception of what counts as a conflict of interest: i) considering that only money matters in the labelling of a given situation as a conflict of interest, ii) considering that any relationship with economic, media and political actors constitutes a conflict of interest (i.e., that medical research should be an ivory tower), and iii) indecision as to what constitutes a conflict of interest. These three groups differed in terms of social composition as well as respondents' relationships to science, politics, and the health care system.

The art of ignoring others' work among academics: A guessing game model of scholarly information search.

Why do scholars pay attention to some works, but not others? This article explores a theoretical model in which scholars search the literature to make sure that their findings are new to their immediate audience. Within the present model, individuals easily disregard literatures of which their audiences are probably unaware. Institutionally organized audiences thus serve as enforcers of the information search. Their members may tacitly collaborate in maintaining unawareness of intellectual developments outside of their common attention space. This model allows us to explain phenomena on which earlier models fail - for example why academics sometimes ignore apparently relevant sources of information or how groups of scholars turn into bubbles, censoring information about findings made in the outside world.

Progressive and degenerative journals: on the growth and appraisal of knowledge in scholarly publishing.

Despite continued attention, finding adequate criteria for distinguishing "good" from "bad" scholarly journals remains an elusive goal. In this essay, I propose a solution informed by the work of Imre Lakatos and his methodology of scientific research programmes (MSRP). I begin by reviewing several notable attempts at appraising journal quality - focusing primarily on the impact factor and development of journal blacklists and whitelists. In doing so, I note their limitations and link their overarching goals to those found within the philosophy of science. I argue that Lakatos's MSRP and specifically his classifications of "progressive" and "degenerative" research programmes can be analogized and repurposed for the evaluation of scholarly journals. I argue that this alternative framework resolves some of the limitations discussed above and offers a more considered evaluation of journal quality - one that helps account for the historical evolution of journal-level publication practices and attendant contributions to the growth (or stunting) of scholarly knowledge. By doing so, the seeming problem of journal demarcation is diminished. In the process I utilize two novel tools (the mistake index and scite index) to further illustrate and operationalize aspects of the MSRP.

Semiotic Thoughts on Biological Sequence Representations.

The deluge of biological sequences ranging from those of proteins, DNA and RNA to genomes has motivated to devise models to represent them, which are further used to contrast those sequences. Here we present a brief bibliometric description of the research area devoted to the representation of biological sequences and highlight the semiotic elements of this process. Finally, we argue that this research area must learn from the evolution of mathematical chemistry and try to avoid its pitfalls.

"É difícil temer aquilo que não podemos ver": o trabalho representacional da Covid-19 e a pedagogia do medo entre vírus e animações / "It's hard to fear something we can't see": the representational work of Covid-19 and the pedagogy of fear between viruses and animacies

Resumo A mais recente pandemia, caracterizada como SARS-CoV-2, se insere em uma linhagem conhecida de patógenos virais que podem desencadear infecções respiratórias severas. Em que pese a importância de se avançar no conhecimento biomédico como forma de garantir o tratamento e a eficácia na suposta erradicação da doença, não é menos urgente refletir acerca das circunstâncias sociais que modelam essa nova situação epidemiológica. Este ensaio analisa como as representações sobre e contágio e morte imbricadas na díade saúde-doença, como fenômenos tradicionais, se revestiram de proposições morais, particularmente entre os meses de janeiro e março de 2020, quando as definições de surto, epidemia e pandemia se tornaram inextricavelmente misturadas. Naquele contexto, e a partir da criação de um tipo de dispositivo de saúde animado por imperativos afeitos à forma mais mortal da doença, a Covid-19 ganhou materialidade. Constituído na confluência de concepções étnico-racializantes, este dispositivo pedagogizou as primeiras imagens da doença, sedimentadas em uma gramática altamente visual e linguística afeitas a um medo coletivo. Examinamos que o trabalho de recepção, nomeação e enquadramento da Covid-19 dependeu de regimes de visibilidade condicionados por processos tradicionais, relativos à materialização e animação do vírus enquanto uma ameaça não só epidemiológica e social, mas política e moral.

Abstract The most recent pandemic, characterized as SARS-CoV-2, is part of a known lineage of viral pathogens that can trigger severe respiratory infections. Despite the importance of advancing biomedical knowledge as a way to guarantee treatment and effectiveness in the supposed eradication of the disease, it is no less urgent to reflect on the social circumstances that shape this new epidemiological situation. This essay analyzes how the representations of contagion and death imbricated in the health-disease dyad, as traditional phenomena, took on moral propositions, particularly between the months of January and March 2020, when the definitions of outbreak, epidemic and pandemic became inextricably mixed. In that context, and from the creation of a type of health apparatus animated by imperatives related to the deadliest form of the disease, Covid-19 gained materiality. Constituted at the confluence of ethnic-racializing conceptions, this apparatus formed the first visual and linguistic images of the disease. Finally, this article examines that the work of reception, appointment and framing of Covid-19 depended on visibility regimes conditioned by traditional processes, related to the materialization and animation of the virus as a threat not only epidemiological and social, but political and moral.

Connecting the Dots Among Science, Education, and STEM.

Makerspaces, Innovation and Science Education: How, Why, and What For? is an attempt to interrogate questions about the history, philosophy, and sociology of science and schooling that have long troubled science educators. In crafting the book, the author, Michael Tan, uses the microcosm of makerspaces to move back and forth to interrogate questions about the nature of knowledge, nature of science, nature of pedagogy, and nature of schooling best suited for the times we live in. In the seven chapters that comprise the book, the author has worked out a consistent framework to answer these questions. This framework represents a strong academic opinion that is thought provoking.

L'ouvrage intitulé « Makerspaces, Innovation and Science Education: How, Why, and What For? (Laboratoires ouverts, innovation et enseignement des sciences: comment, pourquoi et dans quel but ?)¼ tente d'obtenir des réponses aux questions portant sur l'histoire, la philosophie et la sociologie des sciences ainsi que sur l'enseignement qui ont longtemps tourmenté les éducateurs scientifiques. Dans l'élaboration de son livre, Michael Tan, utilise le microcosme des laboratoires ouverts pour aller et venir en s'interrogeant sur la nature de la connaissance, celle de la science, la nature de la pédagogie et celle de la scolarisation qui sont les mieux adaptées à l'époque dans laquelle nous vivons. Dans les sept chapitres qui composent le livre, l'auteur élabore un cadre cohérent pour répondre à ces questions. Ce cadre forme une opinion théorique forte qui suscite la réflexion.

Novel Reflections on the Autonomy and Responsibility of Science.

This paper explores how cultural understandings of the autonomy and responsibility of science in modern society are manifested in two contemporary science novels about research misconduct in biomedical research. In doing so, it looks at several facets of the societal impact of and on public and private biomedical research, especially with respect to changing authority relations and their epistemic and institutional consequences. The analysis focuses on the multi-layered ways in which social and epistemic interests are treated in Allegra Goodman's Intuition and Jennifer Rohn's The Honest Look. Goodman's novel demonstrates how, intensified by the economization of science, internal cultural and institutional aspects of the scientific field enable social configurations that, among others, encourage scientific malpractice and lead to the delay of research projects epistemically and socially worth pursuing. In contrast, Rohn's novel exemplifies the corrosion of the ideal scientific ethos by profit-driven practices in private-sector biomedical sciences. The concluding discussion juxtaposes these findings with pertinent contemporary phenomena in modern science systems to provide a more substantial understanding of the interpenetration between science and other social spheres.

Six attachment discourses: convergence, divergence and relay.

Attachment concepts are used in diverging ways, which has caused confusion in communication among researchers, among practitioners, and between researchers and practitioners, and hinders their potential for collaboration. In this essay we explore how attachment concepts may vary in meaning across six different domains: popular discourses, developmental science, social psychological science, psychiatric diagnosis, psychotherapy, and child welfare practice. We attempt to typify these forms of attachment discourse by highlighting points of convergence, divergence, and relay between the different domains. Our general conclusions are that diversity in the use of attachment concepts across different domains of application has been largely unrecognised, and that recognition of these differences would reduce confusion, help identify sites where infrastructure needs to be developed to support coordination, and strengthen opportunities for collaboration to mutual benefit. We suggest that academic attachment discourse would benefit from clarification of core terminology, including: "attachment", "internal working model", "trauma", and "dysregulation".

Global citation inequality is on the rise.

Citations are important building blocks for status and success in science. We used a linked dataset of more than 4 million authors and 26 million scientific papers to quantify trends in cumulative citation inequality and concentration at the author level. Our analysis, which spans 15 y and 118 scientific disciplines, suggests that a small stratum of elite scientists accrues increasing citation shares and that citation inequality is on the rise across the natural sciences, medical sciences, and agricultural sciences. The rise in citation concentration has coincided with a general inclination toward more collaboration. While increasing collaboration and full-count publication rates go hand in hand for the top 1% most cited, ordinary scientists are engaging in more and larger collaborations over time, but publishing slightly less. Moreover, fractionalized publication rates are generally on the decline, but the top 1% most cited have seen larger increases in coauthored papers and smaller relative decreases in fractional-count publication rates than scientists in the lower percentiles of the citation distribution. Taken together, these trends have enabled the top 1% to extend its share of fractional- and full-count publications and citations. Further analysis shows that top-cited scientists increasingly reside in high-ranking universities in western Europe and Australasia, while the United States has seen a slight decline in elite concentration. Our findings align with recent evidence suggesting intensified international competition and widening author-level disparities in science.

What is a scientific article? A principal-agent explanation.

What is a scientific article? This paper proposes that the scientific article can be understood the main unit in a piece-rate system that solves research patrons' problems of fairly evaluating and paying scientists. It is a solution for the evaluation of science given information asymmetries between lay people and scientists. To elucidate a definition in keeping with the principal-agent approach, this paper extends both former explanations of the research article and proposals of publications as attestations to science patrons.

Agricultural capitalism, climatology and the "stabilization" of climate in the United States, 1850-1920.

Drawing from theory on the "co-production" of science and society, this paper provides an account of trajectories in US climatology, roughly from the 1850s to 1920, the period during which climatology emerged as an organized branch of meteorology and government administration. The historical narrative traces the development of climatology both as a professional/institutional project and as a component of a larger governmental logic. Historical analysis of climatologists' scientific texts, maps, and social organization within government provides a sociological explanation for the emergent "stabilization" of climate as a geographic-statistical category. Climatic stability, defined by the view that climate is unchanging, was advanced over this period in a way that linked the interests and practices of climatologists to actors invested in facilitating and administrating commercial agriculture and trade. I position the logic of climatology and the discourse of climatic stability historically, with reference to prior concern with climate change and, in recent decades, efforts to govern global warming through geoengineering climatic stability.

The sociology of science and generality of the DNA/RNA/protein paradigm throughout the cosmos.

The theory of cometary panspermia argues that life cannot have originated on Earth in the time available. It must have an ultimate, but still undiscovered cosmological source. The origin of life remains an open question. Life on Earth was introduced by impacting comets, and its further evolution was driven by the subsequent acquisition of cosmically derived genes. Explicit predictions of this theory stating how the acquisition of new genes drives evolution, are compared with recent developments in relation to horizontal gene transfer, and the role of retroviruses in evolution. Precisely stated predictions of the theory of cometary panspermia are shown to have been verified.

An atlas of health inequalities and health disparities research: "How is this all getting done in silos, and why?"

Research on health inequalities and health disparities has grown exponentially since the 1960s, but this expansion has not been matched by an associated sense of progress. Criticisms include claims that too much research addresses well-trodden questions and that the field has failed to gain public and policy traction. Qualitative studies have found researchers partly attribute these challenges to fragmentation resulting from disciplinary and methodological differences. Yet, empirical investigation ('research on research') is limited. This study addresses this gap, employing mixed-methods to examine, at scale, how and why this field is defined by insular research clusters. First, bibliometric analysis identifies and visualizes the 250 most-connected authors. Next, an algorithm was used to identify clustering via citation links between authors. We used researcher profiling to ascertain authors' geographical and institutional locations and disciplinary training, examining how this mapped onto clusters. Finally, causes of siloing were investigated via semi-structured interviews with 45 researchers. The resulting 'atlas' of health inequalities and health disparities research identifies eight clusters of authors with varying degrees of connectedness. No single factor neatly describes observed fragmentation, health equity scholars exhibit a diverse disciplinary backgrounds, and geographical, institutional, and historical factors appear to intersect to explain siloed citation patterns. While the configuration of research activity within clusters potentially helps render questions scientifically manageable, it affirms perceptions of the field as fragmented. We draw on Thomas Kuhn and Sheila Jasanoff to position results within theoretical pictures of scientific progress. Newcomers to the field can use our findings to orient themselves within the many streams of health equity scholarship, and existing health equity scholars can use the atlas to move beyond existing geo-disciplinary networks. However, although stronger cross-cluster engagement would be likely to improve insights, the complex nexus of factors underlying the field's structure will likely make this challenging in practice.

Pharmacists' Attitudes to and Perceptions of Pseudoscience: How Pseudoscience Operates in Health and Social Communication.

Given the expansion of pseudoscience, there is a need to understand its mechanisms of diffusion. Our aim was to evaluate how pseudoscience operates among pharmacists. We performed 29 semi-structured interviews to assess the stance of pharmacists regarding pseudoscience. Interview data were analyzed qualitatively to seek common themes. Our results indicate that although pharmacists were broadly opposed to more extreme pseudoscientific practices, some attitudes were detected that may contribute to pseudoscience acceptance. We identified some of the processes by means of which pseudoscience boundaries with science are blurred: the minimization of risk, the hierarchy of health-related pseudoscientific therapies, inappropriate utilization of the notion of "innocuousness," and the use of the placebo effect as a justification for prescription. Discursive patterns typical of pseudoscientific argumentation were also recognized, such as contradictory arguments and the sequndum quid and ad antiquitatem fallacies, which, we conclude, may contribute to a greater acceptance of pseudoscience.

The Diversity-Innovation Paradox in Science.

Prior work finds a diversity paradox: Diversity breeds innovation, yet underrepresented groups that diversify organizations have less successful careers within them. Does the diversity paradox hold for scientists as well? We study this by utilizing a near-complete population of ∼1.2 million US doctoral recipients from 1977 to 2015 and following their careers into publishing and faculty positions. We use text analysis and machine learning to answer a series of questions: How do we detect scientific innovations? Are underrepresented groups more likely to generate scientific innovations? And are the innovations of underrepresented groups adopted and rewarded? Our analyses show that underrepresented groups produce higher rates of scientific novelty. However, their novel contributions are devalued and discounted: For example, novel contributions by gender and racial minorities are taken up by other scholars at lower rates than novel contributions by gender and racial majorities, and equally impactful contributions of gender and racial minorities are less likely to result in successful scientific careers than for majority groups. These results suggest there may be unwarranted reproduction of stratification in academic careers that discounts diversity's role in innovation and partly explains the underrepresentation of some groups in academia.

What Should Cognitive Science Look Like? Neither a Tree Nor Physics.

While pointing out important features of cognitive science, Núñez et al. (2019) also argue prematurely for the end of cognitive science. I discuss problematic analytic features in the application of hierarchical cluster analysis to journal citation data. On the conceptual side, I argue that the research programs framework of Lakatos may not be so wisely applied to cognitive science. Further, the diversity of structure in cognitive science departments may represent a rational, strategic adaptation by an interdisciplinary department to cognitive and other resource challenges rather than the sign of low progress on a discipline.

Science and Technology Studies and the Historiography of Psychology: Towards a Critical Analysis / Os Estudos de Ciência e Tecnologia e a Historiografia da Psicologia: Uma Análise Crítica / Lo Estudios sobre Ciencia, Tecnología y Sociedad y la Historiografía de la Psicología: Una Evaluación Crítica

Abstract This paper examines the relationships established between the fields of history of psychology, and science, technology and society studies (STS). We first present a brief historical overview to situate the present status of the field of psychology within the broad STS arena. We then describe the influence of STS studies in the field of history of psychology through a literature review that emphasizes Ibero-American productions in these areas. Our findings suggest that STS studies can contribute to the understanding the historical issues in psychology through seven areas of intersecting sociological and historical research, which involve the study of psychological objects, the history of psychological instrumentation, the historical analysis of psychology as a discipline and the study of psychology teaching and education, among others. The paper concludes that STS studies play an important role in advancing the production of historical knowledge, shedding light on the conceptual frameworks used in historical research, clarifying historical inquires, and assisting in the process to define psychological epistemic objects.

Resumo Este artigo examina a relação entre os campos da história da psicologia e os estudos sociais sobre ciência, tecnologia e sociedade (CTS). Primeiro, apresentamos uma breve visão histórica situando os objetivos da psicologia no amplo campo da CTC contemporânea. Em seguida, descrevemos a influência da CTS no âmbito da história da psicologia através de uma revisão da literatura que enfatiza as produções Ibero-Americanas. Nossos resultados sugerem que as pesquisas realizados no campo CTS podem contribuir para a compreensão das questões históricas que emergem na área da psicologia através de sete linhas de pesquisa relacionadas a interseção de estudos sociológicos e históricos, que envolvem o estudo de objetos psicológicos, a história da instrumentação psicológica, a análise histórica da psicologia como disciplina e o estudo do treinamento em psicologia, entre outros. O trabalho conclui que os estudos desempenham um papel importante na produção do conhecimento histórico, destacando os referenciais conceituais na pesquisa histórica para esclarecer questões historiográficas e auxiliar na definição epistemológica de objetos psicológicos.

Resumen Este trabajo examina la relación existente entre los campos de la historia de la psicología y los estudios sociales sobre ciencia, tecnología y sociedad (CTS). Primero presentamos una breve panorámica histórica con los fines de situar el campo de la psicología en la amplia arena de los CTS contemporáneos. Luego describimos la influencia del campo CTS en el campo de la historia de la psicología a través de una revisión de la literatura que enfatiza las producciones iberoamericanas. Nuestros hallazgos sugieren que los estudios CTS contribuyen con la comprensión de cuestiones históricas en psicología a través de siete áreas de investigación, que involucran el estudio de los objetos psicológicos, la historia de la instrumentación psicológica, el análisis histórico de la psicología como disciplina y el estudio de la formación en psicología, entre otras. El trabajo concluye que los estudios CTS juegan un rol importante en la producción del conocimiento histórico, arrojando luz a los marcos conceptuales utilizados en la investigación histórica, clarificando las preguntas historiográficas, y ayudando a definir objetos epistémicos psicológicos.

Centralized scientific communities are less likely to generate replicable results.

Concerns have been expressed about the robustness of experimental findings in several areas of science, but these matters have not been evaluated at scale. Here we identify a large sample of published drug-gene interaction claims curated in the Comparative Toxicogenomics Database (for example, benzo(a)pyrene decreases expression of SLC22A3) and evaluate these claims by connecting them with high-throughput experiments from the LINCS L1000 program. Our sample included 60,159 supporting findings and 4253 opposing findings about 51,292 drug-gene interaction claims in 3363 scientific articles. We show that claims reported in a single paper replicate 19.0% (95% confidence interval [CI], 16.9-21.2%) more frequently than expected, while claims reported in multiple papers replicate 45.5% (95% CI, 21.8-74.2%) more frequently than expected. We also analyze the subsample of interactions with two or more published findings (2493 claims; 6272 supporting findings; 339 opposing findings; 1282 research articles), and show that centralized scientific communities, which use similar methods and involve shared authors who contribute to many articles, propagate less replicable claims than decentralized communities, which use more diverse methods and contain more independent teams. Our findings suggest how policies that foster decentralized collaboration will increase the robustness of scientific findings in biomedical research.

Matters of fact and politics: Generating expectations of cancer screening.

Many countries, including Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States have established national screening programs in the effort to advance the early diagnosis of cancers. Australia has population screening programs for breast, bowel and cervical cancers, and this article focuses on breast and cervical cancer screening as the two longest running programs in Australia. While these screening programs are well-established and report relatively high participation rates, the effectiveness of population screening is a contested issue, subject to significant, ongoing debate about its purported benefits (Armstrong, 2019). In this article, we draw on ideas from sociology of science on the construction of scientific facts to analyse how evidentiary claims are presented in policy documents for Australia's breast and cervical cancer screening programs, and the implications for those who are the targets of screening. We explore how screening-related information assumes the status of scientific 'facts', and argue that presenting information as neutral and objective obscures the political choices involved in its generation. Importantly, some of the claims presented in the policy documents have a tendency to emphasise the benefits, and minimise the risks and harms of population-based screening. In doing so, we suggest that the current national policies may be contributing to sustaining expectations of screening that are higher than warranted. Higher expectations may bring with them unintended societal and economic costs to the public. We conclude by noting how deeply ingrained socio-cultural meanings of cancer shape public expectations of the protective value of screening, which allows current screening approaches to become further entrenched and resistant to challenge.