Kuhn paradigm and Epistemology

XSTARTINC12345 We would like our reader to have an immediate perception of the topics that will be debated in Masticationpedia; we will review some of the most current issues concerning the epistemological evolution of science in general, and medical as well as dental medicine in particular.

In this phase we will consider the two fundamental aspects of Progress of Science, according to the Kuhn Paradigms, and Epistemology which questions the concepts of "Statistical Inference" and "Interdisciplinarity".

These two themes, which apparently seem to be in conflict with each other, as the first one needs disciplinarity to highlight the "Anomalies in the Paradigm" and the second needs "Interdisciplinarity", they will integrate through a resolving element that consists of "metacognitive scaffolds", i.e. cognitive bridges between specialist disciplines. In this context, therefore, the reader will be better able to appreciate the stochastic approach towards one of the most controversial topics in masticatory rehabilitations, such as, "Malocclusion", from which come most of the masticatory rehabilitation procedures such as orthodontics, prosthesis and orthognathic surgery.

So, in addition to anticipating the scientific and philosophical aspect of Masticationpedia, we will finally focus on topics such as "Complex Systems", the "Emergent Behaviour" of Complex Systems and "System’s Coherence": necessary steps to introduce scientific clinical topics which bring with them doubts, questions and at the same time paradigmatic innovations tending to change the status quo of the deterministic and reductionist clinical thinking routine, before a stochastic and interdisciplinary language logic.

Article by  Gianni Frisardi

Ab ovo

Before getting to the heart of the Masticationpedia treatment, a premise is appropriate, that mainly concerns two aspects of the social, scientific and clinical reality of the current and the immediately preceding era.

In the last century, we witnessed exponential growth in technological and methodological "Innovations" specifically in dentistry; these innovations have in some way influenced decision-making strategies, opinions, schools of thought and axioms in order to improve quality of life, as stated in the "Exposure Science in the 21st Century". However, this exponential growth brings with it, implicitly, conceptual gray areas (in practical terms "side effects") which are sometimes underestimated, but which may call into question some Scientific Certainties or make them less absolute and more probabilistic.

The phases of paradigm change according to Thomas Kuhn

The two sensitive aspects of the current social, scientific and clinical reality (which seem to conflict with each other, but as we will see at the end of this reading will be complementary) are the "Progress of Science" according to Kuhn and the "Epistemology".

Progress of Science according to Thomas Kuhn

Thomas Kuhn in his most famous work states that science cyclically passes through some phases indicative of its operation. According to Kuhn, science is paradigmatic, and the demarcation between science and pseudoscience can be traced back to the existence of a paradigm. The evolution of scientific progress is assimilated to a continuous curve which undergoes discontinuity in paradigm changes. For example, in phase 2 of the Kuhn Paradigms, called Normal Science, scientists are seen as problem solvers, who work to improve the agreement between the paradigm and nature.

This phase, in fact, is based on a set of basic principles dictated by the paradigm, which are not questioned but which, indeed, are entrusted with the task of indicating the coordinates of the works to come. In this phase, the measuring instruments with which the experiments are made are developed, most of the scientific articles are produced and its results constitute significant growth in scientific knowledge. In the normal science phase both successes and failures will be achieved; the failures are called by Kuhn anomalies, or events that go against the paradigm.

As a good problem solver, the scientist tries to solve these anomalies.

Kuhn's phases in Dentistry

Kuhn, however, divides the evolution of a paradigm into five phases; this is a fundamental process for Masticationpedia, but to keep tuned with the project, we will limit ourselves to describing the two most significant phases:

Phase 4, or the Crisis of the Paradigm As a consequence of the crisis, different paradigms will be created during this period. These new paradigms will, therefore, not arise from the results achieved by the previous theory, but rather from the abandonment of the pre-established schemes of the dominant paradigm. Following this path, in Masticationpedia, the crisis of the masticatory rehabilitation paradigm will be discussed reviewing theories, theorems, axioms, schools of thought and the Research Diagnostic Criteria and then the focus will shift on phase 5.

Phase 5, or the Scientific Revolution Phase 5 deals with the (scientific) revolution. In the period of extraordinary scientific activities, a discussion will open within the scientific community on which new paradigm to accept. But it will not necessarily be the most "true" or most efficient paradigm to come to the fore, but the one that will be able to capture the interest of a sufficient number of scientists and to gain the trust of the scientific community. The paradigms that participate in this clash, according to Kuhn, share nothing, not even the bases and, therefore, are not comparable (they are "immeasurable"). The paradigm is chosen, as said, on socio-psychological or biological basis (young scientists replace older ones). The battle between paradigms will resolve the crisis, the new paradigm will be named and science will be brought back to Phase 1. For the same principle of Phase 4, Masticationpedia will propose, in the chapter titled Extraordinary science, a new paradigmatic model in the field of rehabilitation of the Masticatory System discussing its principles, motivations, clinical scientific experiences and, above all, a radical change in the field of medical diagnostics. This change is essentially based on System Inference, rather than on Symptom Inference, giving mainly absolute value to the objectivity of the data.

It is almost obvious that Kuhnian scientific philosophy prefers disciplinarity, as an anomaly in the genomic paradigm will be noticed better by a geneticist than by a neurophysiologist. Now this concept would seem to be in contrast with the epistemological evolution of Science, so it is better to stop a minute upon it in detail.

Epistemology

The black swan symbolizes one of the historical problems of epistemology: if all the swans we have seen so far are white, can we decide that all the swans are white? Really?
	Kuhn used optical illusion to demonstrate how a paradigm shift can cause a person to see the same information in a completely different way: which animal is the one here aside? Sure?

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Epistemology (from the Greek ἐπιστήμη, epistème, "certain knowledge" or "science", and λόγος, logos, "speech") is that branch of philosophy which deals with the conditions under which scientific knowledge can be obtained and the methods for achieving such knowledge. The term specifically indicates that part of gnoseology which studies the foundations, validity and limits of scientific knowledge. In English-speaking countries, the concept of epistemology is instead mainly used as a synonym for gnoseology or knowledge theory — the discipline that deals with the study of knowledge.

Incidentally, the basic problem of epistemology today, as in Hume’s time, remains that of verifiability.

The Hempel paradox tells us that each sighted white swan confirms that crows are black; that is, each example not in contrast with the theory confirms a part of it:

$A\Rightarrow B=\lnot A\lor B$

According to the objection of falsifiability, instead, no theory is ever true because, while there are only a finite number of experiments in favour, there is also theoretically an infinite number that could falsify it.

But it’s not all so obvious...

...because the very concept of epistemology meets continuous implementations, like in medicine:

$P-value$: In medicine, for example, to confirm an experiment, a series of data coming from laboratory instruments or from surveys, the "Statistical Inference" is used, and in particular a famous value called "significance test" (P-value). Well, even this concept, now part of the researcher's genesis, is wavering. In a recent study, attention was focused on a "Campaign" conducted on "Nature" against the concept of "significance tests". With over 800 signatories supporting important scientists, this "campaign" can be considered an important milestone and a "Silent Revolution" in statistics on logical and epistemological aspects. The campaign criticizes the too simplified statistical analyses that can still be found in many publications to date. This eventually led to a discussion, sponsored by the American Statistical Association, which spawned a special issue of "The American Statistician Association" titled "Statistical Inference in the 21st Century: A World Beyond p <0,05", containing 43 articles by forward-looking statisticians. The special question proposes both new ways to signal the importance of research results beyond the arbitrary threshold of a P-value, and some guides to conduct of research: the researcher should accept uncertainty, be reflective, open and modest in his/ her statements. Future will show whether or not those attempts to statistically better support science beyond the significance tests will be reflected in future publications. In this field too, we are on the same wavelength as the Progress of Science according to Kuhn, in that we are talking about the re-modulation of some descriptive statistical contents within the scope of disciplinarity.

Interdisciplinarity: In science policy, it is generally recognized that science-based problem solving requires interdisciplinary research (IDR), as proposed by the EU project called Horizon 2020. In a recent study, the authors focus on the question why researchers have cognitive and epistemic difficulties in conducting IDR. It is believed that the loss of philosophical interest in the epistemology of interdisciplinary research is due to a philosophical paradigm of science called "Physics Paradigm of Science", which prevents recognition of important IDR changes in both the philosophy of science and research. The proposed alternative philosophical paradigm, called "Engineering Paradigm of Science", makes alternative philosophical assumptions about aspects such as the purpose of science, the character of knowledge, the epistemic and pragmatic criteria for the acceptance of knowledge and the role of technological tools. Consequently, scientific researchers need so-called metacognitive scaffolds to assist them in the analysis and reconstruction of how "knowledge" is constructed in different disciplines. In interdisciplinary research, metacognitive scaffolds help interdisciplinary communication analyse and articulate how the discipline builds knowledge

P-value vs. Interdisciplinarity

Given the above, on a superficial view of the epistemic evolution of the Science, the two aspects of disciplinarity ("Physics Paradigm of Science", highlighting the anomaly) and Interdisciplinary ("Engineering Paradigm of Science", metacognitive scaffold), might seem to be in conflict with each other; in reality, however, as we are just going to see right in this chapter, they are two sides of the same coin because both tend to generate "Paradigmatic Innovation" without any conflict at all.

Now we could conclude that the "Innovations" are already "Progress of Science" in themselves, as stated in the article "Scientific basis of dentistry" by Yegane Guven, in which the effect of biological and digital revolutions is considered on dental education and daily clinical practice, such as personalized regenerative dentistry, nanotechnologies, virtual reality simulations, genomic information and stem cell studies. The innovations mentioned by Guven are obviously to be considered as technological and methodological in nature; however, the Progress of Science does not move forward with this kind of Innovations, which are called "Incremental Innovations" and "Radical Innovations", but it occurs substantially through "Paradigmatic Innovations".

In the strictest sense of the phrase, "Paradigmatic Innovations" are essentially a change of thought and awareness that pervades the whole of humanity, starting from different social strata, from the Copernican scientific revolution to the current trend of Stochastic approach to the biological phenomenon.

In this epistemological context (in addition to other initiatives such as the Research Diagnostic Criteria in the field of the Temporomandibular Disorders — RDC/TMDs), of the Evidence Based Medicine (and other), the Masticationpedia project inserts itself in order to highlight the dialectics dynamism about the progress of the masticatory rehabilitation science. Masticationpedia tends, moreover, to highlight the anomalies that inevitably stimulate a change of thought and therefore a "Paradigmatic Innovation".

Before proceeeding, it could be appropriate to observe a very concrete and significant case.

Bibliography & references

Appendix

In the appendix, there are some scientific articles essential for understanding the topic on which questions can be generated at the end of the update course

The Epistemological (Not Reproducibility) Crisis

John Park

Department of Radiation Oncology, Kansas City VA Medical Center, Kansas City, Missouri Department of Radiology, Univeristy of Missouri – Kansas City, Kansas City, Missouri Corresponding author: john.park@va.gov

Abstract

The current reproducibility crisis is fundamentally a crisis of knowledge, thus in reality it is an epistemological crisis. The current reigning paradigm of null hypothesis testing using a P value of <.05 has made the medical literature prone to be filled with spurious correlations rather than true knowledge. This article brings attention to 3 foundational issues to help navigate the current crisis: The problem of induction, the concept of epistemological access, and the iatrogenics of information. Scientific reasoning is inductive reasoning and the problem of induction highlights the limitations of such knowledge. The concept of epistemological access is introduced to describe the inability of low-level data to extract true findings. This lack of true knowledge brings with it the iatrogenics of information, where having more data are in fact harmful and can lead to patients receiving ineffective treatments.

P-values – a chronic conundrum

Jian Gao Department of Veterans Affairs, Office of Productivity, Efficiency and Staffing (OPES, RAPID), Albany, USA Jian Gao, Email:Jian.Gao@va.gov

Abstract

In medical research and practice, the p-value is arguably the most often used statistic and yet it is widely misconstrued as the probability of the type I error, which comes with serious consequences. This misunderstanding can greatly affect the reproducibility in research, treatment selection in medical practice, and model specification in empirical analyses. By using plain language and concrete examples, this paper is intended to elucidate the p-value confusion from its root, to explicate the difference between significance and hypothesis testing, to illuminate the consequences of the confusion, and to present a viable alternative to the conventional p-value.

The confusion with p-values has plagued the research community and medical practitioners for decades. However, efforts to clarify it have been largely futile, in part, because intuitive yet mathematically rigorous educational materials are scarce. Additionally, the lack of a practical alternative to the p-value for guarding against randomness also plays a role. The p-value confusion is rooted in the misconception of significance and hypothesis testing. Most, including many statisticians, are unaware that p-values and significance testing formed by Fisher are incomparable to the hypothesis testing paradigm created by Neyman and Pearson. And most otherwise great statistics textbooks tend to cobble the two paradigms together and make no effort to elucidate the subtle but fundamental differences between them. The p-value is a practical tool gauging the “strength of evidence” against the null hypothesis. It informs investigators that a p-value of 0.001, for example, is stronger than 0.05. However, p-values produced in significance testing are not the probabilities of type I errors as commonly misconceived. For a p-value of 0.05, the chance a treatment does not work is not 5%; rather, it is at least 28.9%.

A long-overdue effort to understand p-values correctly is much needed. However, in medical research and practice, just banning significance testing and accepting uncertainty are not enough. Researchers, clinicians, and patients alike need to know the probability a treatment will or will not work. Thus, the calibrated p-values (the probability that a treatment does not work) should be reported in research papers.

Masticationpedia is a charity, a not-for-profit organization operating in dentistry medical research,
particularly focusing on the field of the neurophysiology of the masticatory system
 

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