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User:Nicola.georgiou/sandbox/Approaches to Knowledge/Seminar group 13/ Evidence

Seminar Group 13 Evidence Contributions

=Introduction=

'''Evidence is broadly defined as anything presented in support of a claim: providing a reason to believe that something is either true or false. '''

Evidence may be primary, in which case the material presented is a primary source, or it may be secondary, meaning that it is primary material that has been relayed by a secondary source. An example of a primary source is an original document like a letter, whereas an example of a secondary source is a textbook. Generally, primary sources are more credible, but in research, primary and secondary sources are used in conjunction.

Evidence may be presented in a quantitative form (numbers, statistics) or in a qualitative one (abstract concepts that may involve subjectivity), both are usually interdependent.

On this page, we will take a look at the different evidence-based practices, at the particularities of the concept in itself, at different types of evidence as well as the evolution and use of evidence in different disciplines.

= Concepts relating to evidence: =

The Law of Evidence
“Evidence, in law, any of the material items or assertions of fact that may be submitted to a competent tribunal as a means of ascertaining the truth of any alleged matter of fact under investigation before it.” The laws of evidence therefore govern the validity of evidence and the assessment of the quantum of information, this process often refers to the relevancy of the evidence defined as the “tendency to make the existence of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action more probable or less probable than it would be without the evidence."

Burdens of evidence
In accordance with the laws of evidence, any evidence admitted to court is only admissible under certain burdens/requirements. These include relevance but also unfairness, authentication/ self-authentication, that it is not characterized as hearsay (“Hearsay, in Anglo-American law, testimony that consists of what the witness has heard others say. United States and English courts may refuse to admit testimony that depends for its value upon the truthfulness and accuracy of one who is neither under oath nor available for cross-examination.”) , and lastly that the evidence has suffered no form of falsification or ‘spoiling’ whether intentional or negligent.

Witnesses and privilege
A key component of evidence in the tradition of English common law is the supporting testimony of witnesses, these figures are required to pass through an Oath or Affirmation to Testify Truthfully, also referred to as rule 603 by the Federal Rules of Evidence. Following which a period of interrogation and evidence gathering commencing in which the processes of direct examination and cross examination are conducted (Examination, in law, the interrogation of a witness by attorneys or by a judge. In Anglo-American proceedings an examination usually begins with direct examination (called examination in chief in England) by the party who called the witness. After direct examination the attorney for the other party may conduct a cross-examination of the same witness, usually designed to cause him to explain, modify, or possibly contradict the testimony he provided on direct examination.) During this process the witness, in the tradition of English common law, has a series of privileges; These include Doctor-Patient privilege, Attorney-Client privilege, spousal-privilege and various others, which serve to guard the confidentiality of information and protect the witness from self-incrimination as per rule 501 by the Federal Rules of Evidence.

= Evidence-based practices =

EBM - Evidence-based medicine
“Evidence-based medicine (EBM) is the conscientious, explicit, and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients.” EBM originated in the second half of the 19th century and has philosophical roots. Evidence based medicine is based on individual clinical experience to which you integrate clinical evidence found through research. This research is about targeting a patient’s precise condition taking into account his rights, preferences and predicaments.

Practise
Evidence-based medicine follows a rigorous methodology, composed of severals steps:

There must first be a translation of the patient’s problem into a clear question. The next step consists in a thorough search for the information necessary to answering said question. Third, the evidence must be evaluated through different methods in order for its usefulness and validity to be determined. Once all of these have been done properly, the last step consists in applying the results with the clinical expertise to the case and evaluate the performance. The hardest part of this process is the collection of the evidence and its validation.

Disadvantages
Evidence-based medicine has some disadvantages. Primarily, the process of evidence-based medicine can be long and time consuming where the doctor spends most of his time looking through evidence. Moreover, in certain circumstances, a doctor may face a shortage of information, especially younger clinicians with less experience to draw from. It can quickly become extremely frustrating.

Advantages
On the other hand, it is a great way for doctors to learn more from seniors and from their research. It can be done at any stage of their career and is way for them to not only stay up to date but to also integrate medical education with clinical experience. As this method is more time consuming, doctors will need to improve their skill to read selectively, choose what study or article is the most useful and trustworthy.

It is a young discipline that will continue to evolve with new medical advancements and more successful trials.

EBP - Evidence-based Policy
Evidence-based policy (EBP) is a particular strand of public policy making which insists on the importance of evidence. Indeed, EBP insists on how policies should be grounded in solid and objective truth, otherwise known as evidence, in order to accurately determine and answer the needs of the people. In EBP, clear scientific evidence is used to analyse the situation and create the best policy. They reject the consensus of ideology based policy making, which consists in making policies based on « common sense », which they see as insufficient.

Evidence-based policy’s origins can be linked to evidence-based practice, especially in medicine. In evidence-based medicine, clinical decisions are only made after rigorous scientific testing, which are called « randomised controlled trials » or RTCs. The relation between both originated from the Cochrane Collaboration’s influence. In 1993, the Cochrane Collaboration was due in the UK to keep RTCs up to date in order to produce reviews and help the development of human health and health policy. However, evidence-based practice grew so much that in 1999, the Campbell Collaboration organisation was created. The Campbell Collaboration, similarly to its sister organisation, analyses evidence in order to find which one can be the most useful to help the development and understanding of social and public policy.

In evidence-based policy, there are many different methods to determining which evidence is the best one to use and what policy should be made accordingly. However, all of them present similar characteristics. They all belong to a very specific and scientific framework which evaluates risk and benefit in order to guarantee a net payoff in the case of the policy being implemented. Evidence-based methods tend to be quite exhaustive, and a complete overview and thorough understanding of the situation is necessary before any action is to be taken. Policy-makers have to make sure all their theories are tested rigorously and can be replicated by a third party. They also give great importance on the impact of the policy they think of implementing, which means they must analyse all the direct and indirect effects it might cause.

Evidence-based policy remains a very controversial subject that has received a lot of criticism. It is very complex to determine if an issue can be best answered through the use of quantitative research and information. Indeed, the methods and instruments of evidence-based policy have been criticised and are often seen as inadequate when it comes to answering questions with a more human basis, such as social justice or human rights. Often, evidence-based policy is seen as insufficient when it comes to its research. Many professors such as Paul Cairney or Cartwright and Hardie argue that decision making policy is a very complicated process which takes in consideration a great number of factors that cannot be answered simply with the help of evidence-based analysis with RTCs.

Hierarchy of Evidence
Hierarchy of Evidence (or Levels of Evidence) are a heuristic employed in Evidence-Based Practice, such as Evidence-Based Medicine, to relatively rank the validity or strength of recommendations in health care. The most commonly applied metric of Levels of Evidence is the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE), which is implemented by systematic reviewers and guideline developers to evaluate the quality of evidence and determine whether an intervention should be recommended. This is one of the formal manners in which evidence is assessed for its validity before being applied in Evidence-Based Practice s, suggesting the strength of different types of evidence.

GRADE is endorsed by over 100 organisations (such as the World Health Organisation and Canadian Task Force for Preventive Health Care) to form health care recommendations.

Evaluation of Evidence
Quality of Evidence

Initially, quality of evidence is ranked so that randomised controlled trials (RCTs) hold an a-priori high ranking, and observational studies have a lower ranking. Thus, the heuristic emphasises accuracy, precision and prioritises primary forms of evidence. From this initial ranking, evidence can be upgraded or downgraded to reflect issues with the method. Once these considerations have been taken, all evidences are given a ranking of either “high”, “moderate”, “low” or “very low”, where the ranking indicates the confidence with which the data presented may be interpreted as being accurate. This is then considered by clinicians in forming a recommendation. These rankings suggest some of the limitations or biases that may adversely affect the validity of evidence.

Strength of Recommendation

Recommendations are categorised as either “strong” or “weak”, which reflects the extent to which the desirable impacts of an intervention can reasonably outweigh any negative effects. A strong recommendation is likely to be chosen by informed patients and will be structured with their clinicians accordingly. Weak recommendations suggest patients choices will change in line with their preferences and values, which must be considered by clinicians. As such, the quality of evidence outlined above is only one consideration that factors into a GRADE recommendation. GRADE differentiates the quality of evidence from recommendations, as it also considers other factors such as the balance between desirable and undesirable implications, patients preferences and cost-effectiveness. A practitioner will then make a recommendation to a patient based on these conclusions. The use of other factors also demonstrates how evidence alone may not determine a best course of action, and cannot alone provide the answers to real life medical questions.

= Evidence within disciplines: =

Digital Evidence - The new challenges digital evidence presents to the world of Law and Forensics.
The expression "Digital Evidence" (or electronic evidence) is used to refer to digitally stored data that could be presented in a court case, and, if valid, could either prove the innocence of the party facing trial, or incriminate them. As a form of evidence it presents many new challenges to many different fields.

Uses
Digital evidence is mostly used to fight electronic crimes, such as the propagation of child pornography, blackmailing, electronic harrasment, drug trafficking, criminal copyright infringement or any form of credit card fraud. This information, presented in binary form, could be found on a computer hard drive, on a mobile phone, and exists in multiple formats: video or audio files, browser history, transaction logs, message histories, e-mails and digital photographs are all examples of digital evidence.

Challenges
Digital evidence, as opposed to physical evidence, presents quite a few new challenges for forensic examiners and law enforcers. First of all, it is known that digital data can be used as digital evidence in case of need, however, it only gives a partial image of the actions taken by the prosecuted. Only some results of the individual's activity are memorized by the digital device and can be later deciphered by specialists. For example, digital activity such as email messages and server logs, are retained, however, mouse clicks and any keyboard depressions are not retained. Forensics examiners are thus forced not only to acquire said quantitative data, but they also have to be able to translate and interpret it into actions. Another issue that digital data presents, is the difficulty law enforcement agencies have training professionals capable of both collecting and deciphering said data. The field of digital technologies is in constant development, and thus specialists in the field have a hard time keeping up. Said specialist must consequently develop knowledge in both the field of computer science and criminal justice, in order to be able to efficiently understand the quantitive data that digital evidence provides, and interpret it in the context of an actual "physical situation" that may have had consequences on other individuals - as electronic crimes may be just as sever as their physical counterpart.

Lastly there exists a distrust within many court systems for the new forms of evidence that continue to appear before them. This has lead to the treatment of digital evidence in different forms depending upon the court system it is used in, these differences include differing definitions of hearsay for electronic data, and standards of authentication. Often digital evidence is rejected regardless of suspicion of illegal modification.

Evidence within Art History - The debate between the physicality and conceptuality of evidence within an artistic field
In | Art History we find that evidence can exist in many different forms from paintings, sculptures, buildings, photographs, books, etc. Art History has the challenge of dealing with unusual forms of evidence, which now with the rise of technology also include video, sound, and | digital media.

Nonetheless, we need to make a clear distinction between the piece of art, or the object, and its purpose and intention behind it. Thus, within Art History we can find a distinction between evidence in its physical form as well as the conceptual nature of evidence. For example, when looking at | The Starry Night by Dutch painter |Vincent van Gogh we can recollect information such as the stylistic and compositional tendencies of the moment, being the end of the 18th century, and get a good snapshot of the effects of the [| post-impressionist] movement on the art of painting at that time. Simultaneously, we can observe this painting that is considered Van Gogh’s | magnum opus, as a physical piece of evidence being an aging 73.7 cm × 92.1 cm canvas. Information such as the oil paints and pigments used, Van Goghs writing behind the painting and it’s auction history could reveal previous owners that might’ve interacted with (and affected) the artist.

One of the biggest issues regarding material evidence in the field of Art History is precisely related to its materiality. In many cases when studying art history, the original source of evidence is not preset, as it is found in another country or in a private collection. Here is where the physicality of the evidence is sacrificed as then reproductions of the original are used. The problem with these reproductions is that in this translation between original to reproduction the size and scale of the original are lost, asl well as many details that depending on the medium of reproductions, be it photography, cast making, videotaping, etc, cannot capture. Hence any knowledge that could’ve been garnered from these aspects is immediately lost.

What makes evidence in the Arts as a whole so unique is that in comparison to most other fields artistic evidence doesn’t confine itself to logic and thus isn’t based on quantitative facts but instead on experience and ones individuals expression of feelings. Therefore, in the analysis of evidence within Art History we do not just test if something confirms or denies a hypothesis, we try to understand past artist intentions and their way of expressing reality through a specific medium. For example, if we look at | Picasso. When he tried to depict the horror | Guernica and the terror of war, he based himself on reality but painted what he considered to be his truth. Thus, we can use his mural as evidence of the pain of the war and the atrocities that happened to the people and society, through his cubist approach and his specific view of the catastrophe. The question lies in the fact of this being valid evidence for the real event of for Picasso’s specific viewpoint or is it just evidence of the | cubist movement of the time.

Evidence within Anthropology - The Evolution of Evidence in Anthropology
When looking back at the history of anthropologic studies, it is apparent that there has been a shift in the understanding of 'evidence,' as well as a reevaluation of what constitutes an ethical approach to acquiring evidence. Looking at the evidence used by early anthropologists to advance their argument, it comes as no surprise that this evidence has been the source of intense scrutiny, vehement criticism and general outcry; eventually leading to a change in the anthropological understanding of what constitutes reliable evidence.

Early forms of anthropological evidence
Morton's use of white pepper seeds as evidence to determine the intellectual capacity of arbitrary races in his book Crania Americana, was revered an exact science which in turn, upheld the theories of scientific racism. Only when Darwin's book On the Origin of Species was published, was Samuel George Morton's legacy reviewed. More recent studies by Stephen Jay Gould draw attention to the extent to which Morton's evidence was not objective, but subject to an unconscious bias: the seeds were more or less compressed when poured into different skulls so as to obtain findings in compliance with the argument the physical anthropologist was hoping to make. During the same period, most British anthropologists based their studies on reports and accounts from missionaries, travelers and diplomats. This type of secondary evidence was later coined as "paraethnographic" data by Trouillot. This form of evidence too was widely opposed in more recent decades by the community of anthropology scholars, who referred to anthropologists adhering to this method of gathering evidence as "armchair anthropologists."

The critique of these forms of evidence
The critique of these earlier forms of anthropological evidence served to elucidate the core issue surrounding it. Indeed, there existed a widely ethnocentric approach to evidence. As such, rather than searching for objective evidence which would consequently be analyzed, anthropologists such as Milton would select evidence with a certain bias: rather than moving from the evidence towards a conclusion, his ethnocentric standpoint convinced him he knew the conclusion and only needed the requisite evidence to support that conclusion. Similarly, evidence from travelers is likely subject to ethnocentric bias. Indeed, travelers, explorers and missionaries were not looking for anthropological evidence, they were mostly interested in recounting what they saw, placing emphasis on the differences between their own cultural practices and those of the peoples they were with, not shying away from interpreting what they saw in a particular way. Anthropologists who drew on these accounts, did not have access to primary evidence. In working with secondary sources, their evidence was subject to altercations.

The development of new approaches to evidence
In more recent years, there has been a reevaluation of what constitutes anthropological evidence, with a particular focus on the ethics of gathering anthropological evidence. The methods of acquiring empirical and quantitative evidence are diverse and vary from participant observation to interviews and video recordings. Furthermore, a strong emphasis is now placed on evaluating positionality to produce more objective forms of ethnographic evidence, or at least, to allow the reader of anthropologic studies to evaluate the bias which may be embedded in the evidence presented.

Quantitative Methods
Quantitative data refers to 'data expressing a certain quantity, amount or range' amounting to a measurement unit. The collection of empirical data with quantitative research methods makes possible the generation of mathematical modelling for prediction, hypothesis, optimization purposes in statistics, game theory, econometrics and other sub-fields of economics. The aim of quantitative research is to produce a reliable and objective data set. It endeavours to produce a generalized finding.

Examples of quantitative methodologies :
 * cross sectional studies : surveys undertaken at a specific time « t ». By adding up different surveys, one can obtain measures reflecting change in society.
 * opinion polls : survey measuring the diverging public opinions (limited portion of the population) on a specific issue (ex: allegiance to a party for an upcoming election)
 * questionnaires : questions given to a specific group of respondents (ex: 18 to 25 years old) to evaluate behaviours or opinions about a topic (ex: proportion of young people affected by an eating disorder). The questions are ‘closed responses’
 * social attitude surveys : broader questions about beliefs and behaviors (ex: life satisfaction)

Limitations of Quantitative Methods
Quantitive research assumes that a sample of the population studied represents the whole population. This is a very limited view of human beings that can lose the complexity and particularity of each individual, group and situation. For example, a classical assumption of economics is that the individual —or the corporation— is a rational decision-maker always seeking to maximize his/her own profits. This presupposition distorts research and policy-making by perpetuate an economic system of constant absolute gains-seeking. Quantitive methods are limited in their understanding of society as a human web. This poses a real issue of narrowness and bias in research. An example would be the establishment of the World Happiness Report (UN). This new measure was first issued in 2012. It was seen as an improved —more complex— standard quantifier of progress than the GDP for it takes into account additional variables : social support, healthy life expectancy, good governance (ex: freedoms, perception of corruption), environmental sustainability, and some more 'personal variables' like education and physical/ mental health. However even this "improved" generalized set of data has its shortcomings. These criteria do offer a certain comfort of life, but can they add up to a complex, nuanced and personal state as happiness ?

The highest ranking countries are generally Nordic (Norway, Denmark, Finland, Sweden). Nevertheless studies show that the rate of depression, alcohol and drug consumption, and suicides are high and growing in the same countries that score high on the WHR, suggesting at the very least that the picture is more complicated than the index would suggest.

‘Alternative’ and growing use of Qualitative Methods
Qualitative methodology is often opposed to quantitative research. It includes 'unstructured, open-ended interviews with economic actors' over a broad range of issues such 'migration, labour market, technological change', etc. Long and detailed case-studies allow social notions such as gender or/and race (intersectionality) to be part of the equation, as in the analysis of the intricate relationship between discrimination and inequality. Jacqueline Scott in a ESRC's project on Gender Inequalities in Production and Reproduction argues that quantitative methods are 'invaluable when examining the way production (workforce) and reproduction (returning from a maternal leave) interact in terms of a women’s career opportunities'. An examination of 'outcomes for different groups of women, who are in different occupations and who adopt different approaches to juggling work and family responsibilities' is necessary to create inequality-reducing policies.

However, quantitative and qualitative methods are not mutually exclusive. Combined, they offer broadened research and consequently impact policy-making’s understanding of a complex world with intricate social, economical, cultural (etc) relations.

Cartography as a discipline
Cartography is generally not thought of as a discipline, rather as a field of study. However, it can be argued that it is in fact a discipline. The Cartographic Journal is a peer-reviewed academic journal dedicated to the study, discussion, and analysis of cartography. The publishing of the journal in 1964 can therefore be considered as a marker for the beginning of cartography as a discipline.

Mercator Projection
Evidence in cartography mainly revolves around maps, these can differ depending on the map projection used. A map projection is the way in which the globe is converted into a 2-D format, from a sphere to a flat map. There are several types of map projections, one of the most well-known being the Mercator projection. The projection was developed by Flemish geographer Gerardus Mercator. This cylindrical projection involves evenly spaced longitudinal lines, while the distance between latitudinal lines become more largely spaced further away from the equator. Mercator’s intention behind this design was to allow easier navigation for sailors at the time. The straight and perpendicular lines mean that they bear true to north, south, east, and west, allowing navigators to plot a straight-line course. Additionally, these straight lines allow for no distortion when zooming into the map, one of the reasons why it is used in online maps such as Google Maps.

Eurocentrism in the Mercator Projection
The Mercator map projection has been accused of providing a very Eurocentric perspective of the world. The increasing latitudinal lines stretch landmasses that are closer to the poles making them appear bigger than they should be in relation to other countries. Countries in Europe and North America especially have been “artificially enlarged” making them appear more important to the people that view it. In some Mercator maps, Antarctica has been cropped out due to an excessive increase in size. Science education author Michael DiSpezio argues that this emphasises the Eurocentrism of the Mercator projection as the centre of the projection now lies closer to Europe. This distorted representation of the world has therefore had a significant impact on reinforcing the idea of European superiority. The sense of western superiority is thus reinforced via the association humans draw between size and power.

Different forms and scales of evidence in biology
Different methods in the two branches of biology.

Two branches can be seen in biology. The theoretical one and the experimental one. Thus, different methods exists to prove evidence in this field. Theoretical biology is said to be very quantitative. The method of model building very useful in biology implies many quantitative approaches. Evidence is here found through logic. Conversely, in experimental biology, Marcel Weber argues that strong evidence is provided because a very large diversity of approaches are presented. This type of evidence can be seen as qualitative.

Link between the quantitative and the qualitative evidence that biology provides.

Stephen H. Jenkins argues that evidence can be seen both in comparative studies as well as in experiments. Both need observation. Therefore, one can argue that here, at least, evidence is based on observation. For instance, a comparative studies shows that there is a high risk of toxicity for aquatic species for a high environmental concentrations of a specific chemical compound (bisphenol-A) can be harmful for aquatic communities. Here, repetitive observation brings evidence. In addition, Jenkins says that observation implies data. The accumulation of empirical observation can form a data. Therefore the method of analysis here shifts from a qualitative one to a quantitative one. In this point of view, we could conclude saying that in biology, both methods are needed but one should be used before the other.

'''Biological and scientific evidence in public context. '''

Evidence in biology and more largely in science can be see at a different scale. Here, Jenkins talks about how scientific research is spread in the media and how it is difficult for the general public to find evidence in this unorganized spread of facts. He argues that even if all methods and assumptions used in a research project are not shared by the media, the general public can still find ways to try to question and interpret these research methods.

Ethics in obtaining evidence in biological research
Progress in certain areas of biology largely depends on being able to carry out studies in vivo (studies where consequences of experiment/trial are observed in a whole organism - plants and animals - rather than in a tissue extract or dead organism). Drugs and cells interact differently in a test tube versus in a living organism, as there are other physiological and metabolic factors that affect drug efficacy that cannot be observed in vitro; the body might break down the drug before it reaches its target, or it might not be able to absorb the drug.

However, for obvious reasons, animals (excluding humans) are unable to provide informed consent, and even among humans that have consented to participate in clinical research, the search for evidence can and does infringe upon human and animal rights. A balance must be found between the benefits of scientific progression and the rights of the individual. The Tuskegee Trials (beginning 1932) were a breach of ethics. 2/3 of the 600 men enrolled had latent syphilis, and were given no effective care, so suffered the effects of the disease until they died so that it could be studied.

The ethical principles that are common across scientific disciplines have origins in documents like the Nuremberg Code (1947), the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) , and the Declaration of Helsinki (1968). Such ethical principles include duty to society, beneficence, informed consent, privacy, and integrity (not falsifying or omitting relevant data). These documents emphasise that patient health is the first priority, and that protecting the rights of subjects takes precedence over the acquisition of knowledge.

It is necessary in any experiment to have a control group, otherwise it is not worth conducting the experiment. However, an issue arises when considering trials like that of antiretroviral drugs to treat AIDS like AZT. If the drug functions in the way it is intended to, the placebo group misses out on the benefits in order to fulfil the basic requirements of a clinical trial. Whilst it is necessary to do so to get accurate results, the consequences on the individual can be fatal. A response to this mentality is seen in the original AZT trial, which was terminated 5 months prematurely as it was considered unethical to give people placebos when the drug might keep them alive longer. Yet this meant that the trial was not completed and it could not really be said unequivocally that AZT prolongs life.

'Evidence within Medicine' - Addressing the gender bias
Medical research has historically excluded women from trials despite the evidence from these studies determining the treatment and medication available to men and women alike. There is a growing consensus that the evidence basis of the medical discipline is fundamentally flawed. Some notable examples are the 1982 Multiple Risk Factor Intervention trial, conducted to evaluate the impact of certain lifestyle choices on cholesterol and incidence of coronary heart disease, which enrolled 12,866 men and 0 women; the Physicians’ Health Study on the effectiveness of aspirin in reducing risk to heart disease included 22,071 men and 0 women ; and the National Institute on Aging’s Baltimore Longitudinal Study on aging excluded women for the first 20 years it ran. The reasoning behind this exclusion can be grouped into three categories:

1. Scientific: a lack of knowledge of female physiology which may compromise the validity of results if female subjects are included in trials. Also, the concern to avoid harming women’s fertility given women are born with all their eggs at birth as opposed to men, who constantly produce sperm.

2. Historical: to maintain validity of studies, trials must be repeated on the same populations which are, historically, exclusively male.

3. Economic: female participation is restricted due to limited research budgets. Although, this gender bias is also the direct cause of significant economic costs: of the 10 prescription drugs removed from the US market between 1997 and 2000, 8 were on account of women’s health being placed at higher risk than men’s. The process of drug withdrawal is a costly one, the burden of which is typically borne by pharmaceutical companies and their stakeholders. .

= Interdisciplinary uses of evidence: =

Philosophical evidence : “Cogito ergo sum”
Evidence is defined as “one or more reasons for believing that something is or is not true”. It can therefore be stated that the essential principle of evidence is to rule out any doubt on truth, no matter the area of study. For that matter, doubt is the very basis of philosophical thinking. One of the best known questions ever made in this field was the one of existence, covered by the cartesian "cogito ergo sum". By this logical reasoning, Descartes aims to prove his existence: by doubting it, he is producing thought. But in order to think, he needs to exist. Consequently, “cogitat ergo est”, “he thinks, therefore he is”. However, Descartes himself claims in a later production “The senses deceive from time to time, and it is prudent never to trust wholly those who have deceived us even once”. This very assumption leads to question the sufficiency of his theory and on what tangible grounds and indisputable evidence it is based.

Providing irrefutable evidence of the existence of oneself
The philosopher’s approach is qualitative as his doubt cannot be put into numbers. In addition, it can be described as primary evidence since he reflects on his own self. Nevertheless, the Meditations on first philosophy quoted before indicate it is not enough to fully approve the cartesian “cogito”.

Indeed, biological quantitative data would probably give powerful evidence of one’s existence: a living human being in good health should have a heart rate of 60 to 100 bpm when resting. Someone in this range is very likely to exist. Another way to complete Descartes’s theory might be to provide secondary evidence, to include contribution coming from an exterior relevant party. This secondary evidence could be a legal proof such as a birth certificate or surveying his acquaintances to testify to their relationships.

In conclusion, Descartes’s philosophical cogito appears not to be significant enough to acknowledge one’s existence with strong and indisputable evidence. Nevertheless, it would surely be proven with additional evidence and data coming from distinct fields of study such as biology, law, social interactions and relationships etc. This effectively illustrates that an argument is most strongly supported when approached through a wide range of accurate evidence emanating from various disciplines.

Evidence for extraterrestrial life
The search for evidence for extraterrestrial life is based in astrobiology, a highly interdisciplinary field that brings together many disciplines. Evidence from both the sciences (including physics, biology and ecology) and the humanities, such as philosophy, is needed to prove the existence of extraterrestrial life. As it is such a hypothetical field, the collection and analysis of evidence is integral.

Most qualitative evidence for the existence of so called ‘aliens’ is based on exoplanet analysis. The study of exoplanet atmospheres gives an indication of any present biosignature gases and therefore an indication of both microbiological life as well as potential intelligent life. Furthermore, a planet needs the right atmosphere and temperature to support the presence of liquid water which acts as a biosolvent. However, this qualitative evidence is mainly based on experiences of terrestrial life and evolution therefore, more grounded evidence could be found if thinking shifts away from a geocentric mindset; as well as water, other biosolvents are worth considering, ammonia for instance, which is found on the moon Titan as water-ammonia eutectics.

There have also been attempts to quantify evidence for extraterrestrial life. The Drake Equation strives to give a numerical value, N, being the number of already communicating extraterrestrial civilisations that exist. However, there are issues with quantifying such data. The equation has been criticised as evidence, as humans only know their own technology and so this means the last three factors of the equation are complete estimates. A new ‘Seager Equation’ has been proposed and quantifies life in space based on biosignature gases, rather than estimations of radio contact between civilisations, and applies to both microbiological life as well as potential intelligent life.

While astrobiology seems a very scientific field, philosophy has shown to be key in providing evidence for extraterrestrial life where technological limitations mean that it is difficult to quantify data at present. The Panspermia hypothesis is one such philosophical idea, originating from the Greek philosopher Anaxagoras. Panspermia states that life spreads through the universe, as ‘seeds’ from one planet lead to life on another. Meteors are the proposed vectors for extremophile bacteria such as Bacillus subtilis to spread through space, and simulations on artificial meteorites have provided evidence that such spores can indeed survive the harsh conditions of space and atmospheric entry, and therefore evidence for panspermia. However, this evidence is only based on simulations on Earth, and so it might not be considered irrefutable evidence for extraterrestrial life.

=Conclusion= Evidence is manifestly varied in nature: not only is there a general distinction between forms of evidence - primary versus secondary evidence - but there is also a distinction as to what can be considered valid evidence from one discipline to the next. Indeed, certain disciplines place stronger emphasis on quantitative evidence, assuring it has a more objective quality; others focus on qualitative evidence, defending its worth by its broader reach: not all things are quantifiable. The research in this article seems to illustrate a tendency towards multiplying forms of evidence, looking across disciplinary boundaries, thus constituting a mean of developing a more substantiated argument.

= References =


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User:Nicola.georgiou/sandbox/Approaches to Knowledge/Seminar group 13/ Power

Seminar Group 13 Power Contributions

=Introduction=

Power has many definitions depending on the context it is observed in. It can be defined as: the ability to control people and events, or the official or legal right to act in a certain way, or the rate at which energy is used or even the amount of political control a person or a group has over a country. All of these definitions are true to a certain type or interpretation of power.

We recognise power due to its capacity to direct the behaviour of others or to determine the course of events through its ability to give authority and credibility to individuals. This weight that power has over human decision-making and reasoning is why human history and evolution has been so determined by it, be it through racism, sexism, colonialism, classism, religious discrimination and many other forms of injustice. Moreover, power is an issue that goes above any individual discipline, yet manages to dictate some form of injustice within all of them. Thus, it's interdisciplinarity specifically allows us to further inspect the effects of power through the isolation of different forms of powers in certain disciplines.

It is a very broad concept that can be categorised as direct or indirect coercion, or as a strategy or multiple strategies.

Direct Power is to possess the ability to cause actions; to force another actor to do what one wishes. Similar to power as a concept in physics this is the power which one possesses that directs a forcible change in the behaviour of another. Indirect Power on the other hand, is the notion of coercion wherein a persons choices are structured or limited in a manner that provokes a certain decision. This can be achieved through the suppression or limitation of the expression of certain interests, or other indirect means.

Power, as a Strategy, describes the way power can construct our subjectivities, to intersect and connect in a way which creates dominance. These different strategies result in Power as Multiple Strategies, which can be witnessed at the intersection between different types of power - coercive, institutional, and others, interacting to assert an overreaching intersectional form of power.

Using these approaches, this article will analyse power in various disciplines.

=Power in Bias Recognition=

Indirect power in bias recognition - Myside bias
Indirect power in bias recognition considers the ideologies, prejudices and other such biases that are involved in the study of precisely these concepts. “Biases perpetuate when people think that they are innocent whereas others are guilty of biases. We examined whether people would detect biased thinking and behaviour in others but not themselves as influenced by pre-existing beliefs (myside bias) and social stigmas (social biases).” Bias recognition focuses on the inherent power dynamic that exists between those that produce work and those that critique it, showing that this critique ought to be subject to analysis of its own to level the academic field and avoid the subconscious formation of these dynamics.

This corruption of perception, shown to produce statistical inaccuracies also can be shown to have a dramatic influence on political leanings and the social balance of power. One contemporary example includes race relations, and the ability to view the ideological opposition as individuals as opposed to irrational collectives; The faltering of this ability is cited therefore as a potential motive for the polarization of our society. This inability to distinguish between the biases of those one is considering and your own is known in the field of bias recognition as Myside bias, commonly tied to confirmation bias (“Confirmation bias, the tendency to process information by looking for, or interpreting, information that is consistent with one’s existing beliefs. This biased approach to decision making is largely unintentional and often results in ignoring inconsistent information.” ; this statistical disruption is itself a form of indirect power leading to differing degrees of critique across academia, this forms a tendency to provide a lessened critique of agreeing with works which in turn leads to the formation of echo chambers within academia, as those ideas that are agreed with and cause lesser disturbance can propagate while more innovative ideas that demand a higher level of acceptance are halted by an augmented level of analysis and rebuttal.

=Power in Economics=

Market Power (or economic strength)
Market power refers to the ability of an organisation or firm to control the price of a certain product by manipulating supply, demand or both. It is also referred to as economic strength. Economic strength is a clear example of how directly power can be applied, here in the field of economics. Companies able to raise the market price over the marginal cost are called price makers. By doing so, these firms achieve great economic profit without losing customers. Firms with great economic strength can shape the market to their free will, in ways that benefit them greatly and often at the expense of others.

The ability for firms to apply market power depends greatly on the structure of the market. There exists four different market types: - Perfect competition market (or atomistic market): In a perfect competition, there are many different organisations all selling the same products, free to enter and with no one setting the price. That is because no market participants truly possesses market power as they all are on the same level. - Monopoly: Extreme case of market power where one single firm controls the entire market. The firm is the one biggest supplier of a specific service or good, which means they have full power when it comes to influence the output or the supply of said-service.

- Monopolistic competition: Quite a similar structure as perfect competition except that all individual sellers are able to vary the price of their own product by a small margin. This leads to alteration of the products to appeal to the buyer and counter the sales-promotion costs. Monopolistic competition is a market where there is the atomistic relation between competitors of a perfect market, but not the product homogeneity you find in a monopoly. - Oligopoly: An oligopolistic market is one where power dominance is detained by a small group of large sellers. These larger companies collude together thanks to different methods in order to set up barriers and prevent competition to enter the market freely. This results in full control of the market and more expensive products for the consumer.

If market power is extremely practical for those that posses it, it can be very bad for others. Firms with strong economic strength actually lower the overall quantity demanded of the product by increasing their prices. This often leads to non-desired economic excess burden. This leads many countries or organisations to try limiting the economic strength of some firms, for example using competition laws. For example, the European Union has set up a great number of anti-trust laws in order to prevent the economic power of a firm within the free European market to crush all the other ones.

=Power in Education=

Power is “one’s ability to do or get what they want in opposition to the intentions of others”. This idea of being independent and able to realize anything we want to is the very vocation of education according to UNESCO : it “empower(s) people with the knowledge, skills and values to live in dignity, build their lives and contribute to their societies”. Therefore, education is in itself a discipline, and the very process by which anything is taught involves different power dynamics.

Power as a result of education
Firstly, education is the “the process of teaching or learning in a school, or the knowledge that you get from this”, and thus concerns providing students with knowledge and techniques of thinking and communicating, and empowering them with those. Education is therefore a power in itself, being educated is being powerful, able to achieve particular goals in life as education opens doors towards professional and social opportunities. As a matter of fact, education is powerful against social inequalities : 420 million people that currently live in poverty could meet a more comfortable way of life with access to education.

Power dynamics within education
Education is also defined as the “study of methods and theories of teaching”, the curriculum pursued in order to become a teacher or professor. These studies legitimate the hierarchy in academic systems between students and professors: the teacher holds power over their students, justified as they are considered a reliable source of knowledge. This is power as direct coercion, the teacher can make the student do things they would not do on their own. However, as any individual, a teacher bears intersectionality and consequently, an individual subjectivity and unconscious bias. This could reflect on their way of assessing and this is why teachers have to pursue a neutrality training and also why students in national exams are anonymously assessed. Otherwise, the power lying in education could be used by teachers, voluntarily or not, as a strategy to implement biased ideas into students’ minds and could also impact the fairness in evaluation. It would result in indirect coercion (discussed in the following section) which could affect equal opportunities for all students. This matter is discussed in "On Teacher Neutrality: Praxis, Politics and Performativity" by Daniel P. Richards. Such power imbalances, without a concern for neutrality and objectivity, would eventually be counterproductive in the goal of education not to leave any child behind.

In short, education involves power dynamics at its heart but is also about training powerful and aware individuals. Its aim is to eventually reach an equally diverse stream of educated independent thinkers with limited social inequalities. Education is therefore fundamental in the process of balancing current power inequalities between social groups and consequently limiting coercion among them.

Censorship
The act of censoring is defined as the suppression or prohibition of content judged to be unacceptable, obscene or a threat to security. Censorship can be conducted by governments, institutions and different types of controlling bodies. It may involve the limitation, or an altogether ban, of access to certain types of information - having thus a direct influence on people's opinions and ideas, as well as their further actions.

The act of censorship in Educational sources
Educational sources play a big role in the development of youth's ideas, opinions as well as critical skill. As it is the youth that represents the future of a society, censorship and manipulation of material taught in educational institutions is not a rare occurrence. Censorship in educational sources may simply consist of the removal of content deemed inappropriate for children, such as nudity and explicit language, however, in more severe cases, it concerns social and religious themes that are deemed controversial.

Examples of such censorship include the omission of Darwin's theory of evolution in the curriculum of some American schools, as it heavily contradicts religious statements put forward by the Bible. This omission prevents students from observing other perspectives to the idea of human creation, and thus from doubting their strictly religious upbringing- making them adhere to their religious community's expectations.

This type of censorship in education, allows for organisations and institutions to take control over the youth's beliefs and opinions, creating a whole generation of individuals whose behaviour has been constructed to the said controlling body's liking.

= Power in International Relations =

Soft power
Soft power can be seen as a form of indirect power used as a strategy, visible within the discipline of international relations.

As opposed to “hard power”, reaching objectives through the use of force or coercion, soft power relies on the use of economic or cultural means to exert influence, demonstrating the use of power as both strategy and indirect influence.

The term soft power was first coined by Joseph Nye in the late 1980s, in defining his interpretation of the post-Cold War international order. Nye suggests that within the discipline of international relations, there is a rising significance of factors such as technology, education and economic growth, in lieu of traditional fields of geography, population and raw materials. He identifies five characteristics of international relations in the modern era; economic interdependence, transnational actors, nationalism in weak states, technology and changing political issues. In this new reality, intangible forms of power are more important, such as what Nye calls “soft” or co-optive power. Rather than needing and paying for coercive measures, a country should use the fields of culture, ideology and institutions to appear attractive, and thus structure opportunities for allies to develop interests that align with the nation. This form of power aligns with the definitions and aims of both strategic and indirect power - strategically using indirect means to establish power in the international arena.

Chinese Soft Power in Africa in the 21st Century
In addition to displays of direct power in Africa, through investment, trade as well as physical presence, the use of educational and technological initiatives are an important aspect of China's foreign policy in Africa, establishing and exerting soft power in the region. The Forum on China Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) was established in 2000, commencing the Programme for China–Africa Cooperation in Economic and Social Development .As part of the special relationship this forum defines, China has an active role in Africa through civil society, private sector as well as aiming to expand Chinese influence in African policymaking, exerting indirect coercive power in the host nations governmental operations. The union was strengthened by the African Union (AU) creating the China–AU Strategic Dialogue in 2008, symbolised by its $200 million headquarters in Ethiopia gifted by China. Chinese influence is markedly notable in the sector of education. Since 2004, there has been the establishment of 48 Confucius institutes in Africa. These are partnerships between Chinese and foreign universities – where a domestic university provides space, lecturers and funding is sent from China to provide programmes which are taught in context of the home university’s curriculum. Additionally, China offers strong educational support to African students, providing opportunities for African students to study in China. UNESCO’s Global Education Monitoring Report found that China was offering 12,000 scholarships to African students in the following year – a figure which represents a greater sum than the rest of western nations combined. The influence of Chinese policy on the African continent has been tangible. According to an Afrobarometer study in 2016, 63% of Africans (of those in the 36 surveyed nations) deemed China’s influence in Africa as being positive. In three of five African regions, the Chinese development model either matches or surpasses the popularity of America’s. This demonstrates the growing influence of Chinese thinking and education within Africa, however, through co-optive rather than coercive means - evidencing the use of indirect power, and power as straetgy

= Power in Linguistics: The ‘Maleness’ of Language and its Oppression of Women =

Language as a Struggle for Power
One may see language as something neutral, inoffensive, irrelevant to the study of oppression and inequalities. But sociolinguists study ‘language in relation to social factors, including differences of region, class, and occupational dialect, gender differences, and bilingualism.' Thompson argues that the oppression of women is a systemic social and political linguistic strategy. He studied the ‘ways in which meaning (or signification) serves to sustain relations of domination.’ For example, in the popular statement 'it is wrong to have sex before marriage,' the use of the pronoun "it" gives this utterance an authoritative, absolute, eternal (reification) maxim-like weight.

Toni Morrison famously stated : ‘Language can be a real battlefield, a place of oppression, but also of resistance.’

Language as a place of oppression
=== ‘The Invisibility of Women’ === Terms like ‘man’ and ‘he’ serve both as male-marked and gender neutral words. They contribute to ‘obscuring women’s importance [in society], and distracting attention from their existence.’ Miller highlighted that women avoided responding to job advertisements phrased with the he/his generic terminology for they feared they didn’t « meet the qualifications ». This demonstrates how language can be at the root of gender-based employment disparities.

‘The Maleness as a Norm’
Many terms, especially those who describe an occupation, rest on male norm. One would say a 'doctor' (male-marked in the collective imagination) and would precise a 'woman doctor' or worse 'lady doctor'  (worse for it delegitimizes the professionalism of a female doctor). The presence of women in —usually authority— positions is understood as deviant. It echos Beauvoir’s analysis that ‘women are defined not in themselves but as relative to men who are positioned as universal.’

The Sexualization of Women
Objectification —especially sexually— of women is a normalized and persistent phenomenon. Insults aimed at women predominantly express sexual promiscuousness (bitch, slut, whore, cunt). Insults towards men revolve around homosexuality (considered stereotypically as 'feminine men') and the promiscuousness of their mother (son of a bitch). Another example is the double —sexual— meaning some words hold for women (and not for men). A professional refers to ‘a person engaged or qualified in a profession’ for both genders. It also holds a negative connotation for women by designating a prostitute.

The Encoding of the Male Experience
Descriptions of experience rely on words that were —principally and originally— thought of to express androcentrism. The lack of words to convey important female experiences leads to their invisibility or their distortion. Spouse rape was long considered impossible and was not criminalized because a wife was considered as her husband property. The term didn’t exist for it served no utility in a man’s world. How to fight a crime that can’t be named ?

Language as a Place of Resistance
Numerous feminist linguists and activists have pushed for the creation of female congenial reality and thus a congenial language. Ergun describes female empowerment ‘through innovative linguistic usages that made women and their gendered experiences textually visible.’

The Fight for Neutral Terms : the Decodification of women’s existences
A big win for feminists was the popularized and legal use of  the appellation 'Ms' instead of 'Miss' (which referred to unmarried girl) or 'Mrs' (which referred to a married woman). In both previous cases, the woman was defined by her marital status.

The ‘Revolutionary Creativity’ : Neologisms that express female experiences
Thompson used the term 'revolutionary creativity’ when exploring the possibility of linguistics and social revolution. It consists of the creation of new expressions that faithfully describe women’s experiences. Similarly to the term ‘marital rape’, the term ‘sexual harassment’ first publicly appeared in 1975 before the Commission of Human Rights of New York City. This new linguistic formulation opened a new chapter in women’s rights in the workplace especially. The universality of the #MeToo movement is in part a result of this linguistic possibility. Intersectionality now poses new questions of inclusivity and inequalities of language. The study of Language continues to highlight systems of oppression and will continue to adapt in a fight for equality.

=Power in Mathematics=

Power as direct coercion in mathematics
For John Conway, there is a form of power offered to anyone in mathematics. He argues that ideas in mathematics are simple and that anyone could have discovered them. It is simply a matter of hazard. John Conway argues that these simple ideas can be used anywhere, in any other matter. This is a way in which anyone can handle power in mathematics. By giving freedom of thoughts to their rational mind, human beings can look for ways in which we can use mathematics in life. Here, we can refer to power as direct coercion, in the way that many forms of power can be used by anyone in any matter.

Power as strategy in mathematics
Mathematics holds a power in its structure of classification and characterization. Children have the ability to use this power in many ways. But usually it is the teachers who give them the structures when they could create their own. John Mason argues that we should give more emphasize to students to create these structures of classification and characterization as they have the capabilities to do so. There is indeed a considerable amount of ways of doing so. By doing so, learners will find their own way of doing and appreciating mathematics. This is another way in which anyone can handle power in his studies of mathematics. It can be referred to as an example of power as strategy. The ways in which we use classification and characterization can restrain our power of perspectives in mathematics.

=Power in the media=

The media nowadays has all the power on the news and information we receive. They gather, pick, edit, present that information, which gives them some control. The media has a lot of influence over people’s actions.

The media and health issues
That power can be negative, when either used consciously to manipulate people or to influence their beliefs. When forming their opinion people are likely to consider the opinions of others and the media allows that showing what is popular at the moment, what are influential people doing… They have a direct power over people that can be dangerous. Through adverts the media can make people desire something they do not need at all, through polls and surveys they can influence someone’s political opinion and through photographs they can influence how someone views themselves. Their influence goes beyond superficial ideas that they give to people, they can influence their mind state and mental health. Studies have shown that the media and the 'ideal body type' that is promoted affects people and can not only lower their self-esteem but push them to start developing an eating disorder. Even if, the media cannot be blamed directly for the increase of mental and physical health issues in the recent years, they can be blamed for promoting some content. The power they have is very important as it can play a part in people’s health.

Power in the media and political influence
This power is indirect because the media organisation has the ability to choose how and what they are going to communicate. Anything said, published or filmed has been reviewed and edited. A media organisation can choose to omit information even if sometimes it is not unethical, for instance, in an advertisement for an item, the brand is not expected to present every single detail. But it is not always justified, whether it is to convince people of something without giving them all the information or to manipulate their actions. The media can take away people’s choice. This is mostly used in politics. Trying to convince people to vote for someone instead of someone else is an example of the extent of that power. That can be done by showing incomplete data or impose strong views to people who are confused or easily influenced. Even if the media has a great amount of power and hold over society, some journals would not risk their paper’s integrity to make people vote for someone particular.

Echo chambers within (social) media
The term echo chamber is a metaphor that illustrates the way a certain set of ideas and beliefs can be confirmed and magnified. This occurs as a result of 'insulation' from any rebuttal that contradicts what is being communicated within the echo chamber. Echo chambers can misrepresent the true state of affairs, with a range of consequences. A false sense of security could be imparted, or a climate of fear created by amplifying misleading facts, acting as a barrier to truth.

The relationship between power and echo chambers is cyclical. Companies and networking services such as Facebook are very powerful, and the frequency of echo chambers is evidence of the power they have to influence peoples opinions. The power of Facebook stems from its size , and the scandal of Cambridge Analyticas involvement in the 2016 US election is indicative of the extent to which firms like Facebook can manipulate peoples opinions and actions. The flip side is that echo chambers act to increase the power of the corporations that create them. The recent rise in popularity of the app Tik Tok illustrates this point via what is known as a filter bubble. Algorithms track the activity of users and then use the data to provide content that is tailored to what the algorithm has determined are the interests of users. This serves to enhance user engagement and enjoyment, which feeds into the power of the provider, as well as preventing users from finding new ideas, as the information and opinions they are shown only reflects their own beliefs.

=Power in Medicine=

Indirect Power in Medicine - Citation Bias
Power in medicine can be understood as indirect coercion. This is implemented through what is known as ‘mobilisation of bias’ where certain groups are organised within a system while other groups are excluded, thus some groups will have an advantage over others. Power dynamics in medical research can be observed through citation bias in peer-reviewed journal articles. Research over the past 40 years has demonstrated that researchers cited significantly more positive references (research that supported their findings) than neutral or negative references.

Gøtzche first shed light on this bias in 1987 when he investigated the references of research papers on drug trials for rheumatoid arthritis. 76 articles published on the topic before 1985 were used in the study. If they had a significantly higher proportion of positive research that supported the effectiveness of the drug tested, they were considered as having a positive bias. Of the 76 articles examined, 44 used a positive selection of references thus demonstrating that many of the researchers had favoured citing sources that supported their argument. More recent studies have shown that citation bias can be observed in a range of issues in medicine from imaging research to the treatment of stroke, and a wide range of other medical conditions.

There are serious implications of citation bias that gives statistically significant research more power. Greenberg (2009) found that citation bias can lead to beliefs in the medical community that are based on very little evidence. The protein β-amyloid is widely believed in the medical community to be produced in the muscle fibres of those suffering from sporadic inclusion body mitosis (sIBM). This 'fact' has been critical in treatment trials for this muscle disease. Greenberg had found over 200 journal articles that accepted this 'fact', shockingly, only 6 articles were found to support the claim that β-amyloid is present in the muscle fibres of individuals with sIBM. Additionally, he found that 94% of the citations of primary data was of the positive references, while 6% where citations of articles that rejected this 'fact'.

Allowing positive research to hold this power may result in a skewed conclusion of the article, readers acquiring a biased list of references, and in the worst case, harm to a patient. Although citations are designed to be an objective system in academics, it is crucial that medical researchers are aware of the indirect power they are giving to statistically significant research to avoid distortions in scientific knowledge.

= Power in Pharmacology = Pharmacology as a field is incredibly important due to its implications in the study of drugs and human health. Throughout the discipline, there are several different strategies of power at play.

Direct Power
One example of direct power in pharmacology is the use and testing of drugs themselves. A drug is defined as a substance that will change the behaviour of affected cells and so drugs directly cause actions, and directly changes the body system. Therefore, drugs, and by extension, the pharmacological researchers who manipulate them, have power of direct coercion over cells and the body of whoever takes them.

Indirect, Institutionalised Power
There are several examples of disparities within pharmacological and clinical drug studies, affecting ethnic minorities as well as other social minority groups such as women and the elderly. Where certain groups are more predisposed to a disease, especially in the case of ethnic groups, race will be used as evidence for causality and will lead to institutionalised racism in the field. A lack of evidence representing these minorities in regards to drug responses mean that they will often have worse health outcomes, even if treated. These are examples of power as multiple strategies acting on minorities in pharmacology, as institutionalised bias against these groups also mean that they are less likely to enrol in clinical trials in the first place. Indirect coercion in pharmacology therefore means there is power affecting non-decision making of these minorities.

Social Events and Power Affecting Pharmacology
When assessing social events such as the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak and American president Donald Trump’s role in amplifying popularity of certain treatments, other examples of power strategies become apparent. On 19 March Trump expressed support for chloroquine/hydroxychloroquine as a drug to treat Covid-19 symptoms, however there is distinct lack of evidence that this drug has any effect, with only limited evidence in in-vitro studies. After Trump’s address, there was a high surge in prescription fills of the drug compared to the same time frame in 2019 as well as increased internet searches to purchase chloroquine. The FDA also released an emergency authorisation for its use on 28 March. Therefore, it is shown that high-profile figures possess the ability to increase public attention and therefore influence public decisions in regards to a drug that has not been sufficiently tested. The indirect coercion of the public in this case is due to the power exerted by the president and not by pharmacological evidence; the president of a country would have more authority over public influence than researchers in pharmacology. This is due to institutionalised ideas that people are more likely to listen to a political leader than actively search for research papers themselves. To conclude, the power of social events such as this also have direct coercion over the discipline and the direction of the field of pharmacology.

Big Pharma
'Big Pharma' is a colloquial term that is used to refer to the global pharmaceutical industry. It has negative connotations relating to the widely held belief that pharmaceutical companies are driven by profit with little regard for individual rights, reinforced by the long history of fraud, scandals and lawsuits within the industry. The power of pharmaceutical companies is evident in their revenue: in 2014, global revenue was over $1 trillion USD. Big Pharma contributes approximately two thirds of the annual budget of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and as such hold influence over the FDA.

= Power in Psychology =

Use of WEIRD samples in psychological research
Currently in the top six premier APA journals 68% of the samples studied are sampled from the United States, and even more strikingly 95% of the samples used in these studies come from WEIRD countries. Thus, most research published in the leading journals within the discipline of Psychology has relied on sampling WEIRD populations, being western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic populations. This is a clear example of how power acts subconsciously within a discipline, and how this underlying form of power found in psychological research ultimately leads to an understanding of psychology that is incomplete and does not adequately represent humanity. This unconscious bias has affected the field of psychology for many years now, one might expect that our scholarly work and editorial choices would by now reflect the knowledge that Western populations may not be representative of humans generally with respect to any given psychological phenomenon. However, research published nowadays still only represents less than a 5% of the worlds population. Currently, one of the leading journals within psychology, Psychological Science, still relies mostly on Western samples and uses these data in an unreflective way to make inferences about humans in general. This focus on only a 5% causes a neglection of the rest of the 95% of the world which doesn’t allow for proper research on the whole of humanity which is necessary for creating a science that truly represents the whole of humanity.

We can also expand this notion of powers within psychological research to not just the sampling but also the contributors, samples, and editorial leadership of the journals of the six leading APA journals as they are predominantly American. Furthermore, American psychology can no longer afford to neglect 95% of the world given that many of the problems psychology can potentially address are worse among the neglected 95% than in American society.

Specifically, this form of indirect power stems from a cultural basis, or better said a disregard and stripping away of cultural context that happens most times in psychology which emphasizes instead the fundamental psychological processes being examined. Therefore, psychology must confront the bias in its broad literature toward the study of participants developing in environments unrepresentative of most of the the world’s population. Interestingly, scientific research has produced thorough evidence that cultural experience is fully capable of changing biological factors. A study in examining the vision of European children versus and Moken children from the islands of Asia's Andaman Sea showed that the Moken children’s pupils would widen when underwater, while the European children’s would constrict their pupils to improve vision. With this we can argue that if something as simple as visual processing can differ because of cultural differences it is unreasonable to base psychology, or behavioural science on the study of a select sample of specific background, WEIRD, and not widening the exploration to the plethora of cultures existing currently on our planet. This problem is still persistent nowadays, as the issue is no longer the acknowledgment of this problem of power but in the active push against it. However, we still see how within the discipline there is a habitual dependence on convenience sampling and the little evidence of the discipline making any meaningful movement toward drawing from diverse samples.

This form of power seems to bee so intrinsic to the discipline itself as it has been present since the beginning of its creation. It clearly benefits a certain demographic and allows for a certain dominance of the field by research with a WEIRD background, as it allows for them to apply most of their research to the general populous without any explanation, as opposed to other types of research that traditionally requires much more in-depth research into sociocultural effects. At the same time, we see how this power dynamic also leads to a certain publishing bias of research regarding specific samples used in the research. Nonetheless, we see how in the past years there has been a turn in the discipline and a clear realization that wider more relevant research examining a much more diverse sampling pool and variety of cultural upbringings is essential for the advancement of the discipline.

=The Power of Historical Studies within a State= George Orwell offers an all too real vision of the extensive power detained by those who diffuse historical knowledge: “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” Considering History is the discipline concerned with the study of past events, and admitting that there exist different approaches to that study, it is apparent that the choice of approach reflects the extent to which a state desires to concentrate power. Indeed, the control of the state over the discipline of History, and as such over the diffusion of knowledge about the past, is proportional to its need of remaining an unchallenged power. In other words, the tighter the control over History as a discipline and the heavier the censorship of the past, the more power over the people a state can accumulate.

The Study of History in the United States
In the United States of America, a romanticised historical narrative around the relations between colonisers and Native Americans had long been perpetuated through faulty accounts of history in textbooks and more generally historical research. In textbooks, an emphasis was often placed on the the evangelisation of the Native American people, portraying the colonisers as the Good Samaritan, while disregarding other, more violent aspects of the relationship between colonisers and Native Americans. Another approach was to completely eliminate any mention of the interactions with Native Americans, thus denying their presence.

A clear line can be drawn between the government's desire to legitimate its power over the American soil and the historical narrative they recounted. Indeed, acknowledging that the grim reality of colonisers arrival correlates with the countless deaths of native peoples due to the destruction of their land, war, and disease, would give them legitimate power to call for their rights to be respected. Conversely, the beginning of changes and improvements made to textbooks on the History of colonisation coincided with a greater willingness to listen to native Americans' demands.

=Power in Fine Art=

History of Power in fine art: Innovation and Patronage
Power as both direct and indirect coercion has a long history in the arts. In fine art, especially since neoclassicism came to dominate European academies in the mid 1700s, innovative movements struggled to find a footing in their early stages, the disruptive reputation of a novel approach being seen to challenge the power of the incumbent artistic institutions across Europe. For example, during the 1860s in Paris, the Salon rejected around half of the work submitted by the contemporary impressionist painters in favour of works that conformed to the style taught at the Academie des Beaux-Arts, exerting its power directly to maintain dominance and sustain the neoclassical orthodoxy.

During the same period leading up to the first world war, fine art as a discipline and, in turn, the art produced was heavily influenced by the tastes of the wealthy patrons commissioning the works. This also helps to explain the difficulty artists faced their in allowing their more daring work to gain exposure. In this way, the societal elite enacted their power as indirect coercion to control the development of fine art, consciously or subconsciously. .

Power as indirect coercion in modern day artistic institutions
It could be said that power structures in the visual arts have improved in terms of attitudes to new artistic forms and the restrictive influence of the patron but much progress is needed when it comes to diversity in the institutions guiding the future of the discipline. The 2015 Art Museum Staff Demographic survey, conducted in the US and funded by the Mellon Foundation, collected demographic data from members of the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) and American Alliance of Museums (AAM). The study found that 84% of curators, conservators, educators and those in leadership roles are Non-Hispanic White compared to 4% Black and 3% Hispanic White, proportions which do not reflect the diversity of the American population. Whilst these findings reveal prominent racial exclusion in the American art world, efforts are being made to reduce the strength of these power structures. The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) New york has, for example, undergone an expansion and now exhibits a permanent collection of multicultural art with works from Africa, Latin America, Asia as well as a sizeable number by female artists.

=Conclusion= The different notions that have been used in this article for the investigation of power (direct coercion, indirect coercion, strategy/language, multiple strategies) and have resulted in both a conceptual development of the individual notions but also, to some extent, have conceptually criticized each other. These different notions have also been tools that have allowed a further investigation of individual disciplines and their specific relationship with power.

From an interdisciplinary perspective questions have been risen about the variety of disciplines examined previously regarding specifically the people who work in the separate disciplines. This has allowed for the analysis of how systems of power have been formed between these people to create complex webs of direct and indirect power relationships, which then join together with other webs to form the power ecosystem we find currently in each one of these disciplines. This analysis has also allowed for the unpicking of what power is conceptually and how it might be understood.

Ultimately, power exists due to the idea of authority and how this authority affects behaviors in the different disciplines. We can visibly see how evidence, truth and history have a great effect of who hold this authority and its direct and indirect effects. Furthermore, we can now clearly see how notions of power, we might think of as being applied solely in social contexts, are embedded in all different types of contexts.

= References =

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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 * I never had a dental cavity.

 * When I was a child I invented a language I can still speak.
 * I used to tell everyone I was Bill Gate's daughter.

title: User:Icloneseashells/sandbox


text:
User:ColoringKidsOnline

Coloring Kids Online is the creator and author of kids-online.xyz.

ColoringKidsOnline contributes children's coloring books to Wikijunior books.

Exciting cool learning coloring books for pre-readers and beginner readers:

Parents can tell about animals by coloring "Horse coloring book page".

Kids can slide crayon on "Bear coloring book page".

School teachers can print out the "Elephant coloring book page".

title: User:ColoringKidsOnline


text:
Talk:OpenSCAD Tutorial/Chapter 5

"For example, there is a boxes.scad script which contains the model of a rounded box. The boxes.scad script contains one module, which can be used to create the corresponding box. You can open this script to check what the parameters of this module are and then use it to add rounded boxes in your design."

How do I find "MCAD/boxes.scad" and open it?

title: Talk:OpenSCAD Tutorial/Chapter 5


text:
Exercise as it relates to Disease/Does balance training and high intensity resistance training benefit people with idiopathic Parkinson's disease?

What is the background to this research?
-	Idiopathic Parkinson’s Disease (IDP) is a common neurodegenerative illness which negatively affects the human brain, muscles and movement. The illness weakens the muscles and gradually immobilises functions of the body. This occurs due to the loss of dopamine neurons in the substantia nigra, which is involved in the regulation of movement. Although the cause of this disease is unknown, certain factors can increase risk of IDP. Symptoms and signs include having slow bodily movements, tremor, rigidity and postural instability. Due to these symptoms, people with IDP have a higher rate of falling and risk of injury.

-	The resistance training component of this intervention focuses on increasing strength of the knee extensors, knee flexors, and ankle plantar flexors, as these are the main muscles required in the maintenance of optimal stability.

-	The balance training component was measuring the individual’s stability under somatosensory sensory conditions and altering their vision.

-	This issue is still important for people with IDP as it continues to arise, and many people still do not understand the impact of IDP has on patients. Physical inactivity is common among elderly individuals, which can be quite detrimental as balance and strength can deteriorate in people with IDP. This is why incorporation any type of physical activity (PA) is beneficial in slowing down the process of this disease.

Where is the research from?
-	This study was completed by the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Johns Hopkins University Medical Centre in Baltimore, US.

-	The study was approved by the Human Subjects Committee of Florida State University in order for them to continue.

-	All the participant’s and their primary care physicians gave written and informed consent.

-	The study was conducted by four authors with varying expertise and accreditations, Mark A Hirsch, Tonya Poole, Charles G Maitland and Robert A Rider.

-	These four authors have previously worked on a study together related to parkinsonism.

What kind of research was this?
-	The study was a randomized control trial which took a period of 10 weeks in order to test the effects of balance training by itself or combined with high resistance training in improving balance and muscular strength in patients with IPD.

-	The 15 participants chosen for the study were all recruited from the Big Bend Parkinson’s Disease Support Group in Tallahassee.

-	These participants were only eligible if they had been diagnosed with IPD by their neurologist, and if they had not partaken in any other balance or resistance training activities prior to this study.

What did the research involve?
-	The study involved 15 patients, seven people performing balance training by itself and six people performing both balance and high resistance training.

- All participants begun by going through baseline testing, pre-test for balance on one day, and then another pre-test for muscular strength on another day.

- Balance was measured through a computerised dynamic posturography test, which analyses an individual’s balance control and determines the patient’s response to the different balance exercises given (Sensory Orientation Test [SOT]).

- Strength was measured by the amount of weight the patient could lift during a 4-repetition max test of knee extension, flexion and ankle plantarflexion. Participants continued to take their required medication throughout the study and begun their training two hours after they have consumed their morning dose.

What were the basic results?
-	Balance analysis included the summary balance score from the SOT, latency to fall and proportion of trials resulting in falls.

-	Strength analysis included the muscular strength of the knee extensors, knee flexors and ankle plantar flexors.

-	These were all measured at baseline, after the intervention was finished and four weeks after the study was finished. At baseline testing, characteristics between both groups did not differ significantly.

Important Findings:
 * 1) Balance training improved performance on the summary balance measure from the SOT. The combined group had a significantly higher mean compared to balance group. Effect was greater by the addition of resistance training.
 * 2) The intervention increased latency to falling and reduced the amount of trials resulting in falls, this effect continued for at least 4 weeks. Latency to fall was increased by 15% and percentage of trials resulting in falls had decreased by 20%, this result remained the same for 4 weeks post-treatment.
 * 3) Although the balance group’s main focus was not to increase strength, both groups had an increase in muscular strength post treatment, but the combined group had a significantly higher score. The combined group increased strength in those three components by 52% with the balance group having an increase by 9%. Overall, muscular strength was increased, and this effect also continued for at least 4 weeks post-treatment.
 * 4) The benefits of the intervention post-treatment had also continued for 4 weeks, even if the participants did not continue with their training.

What conclusions can we take from this research?
-	Currently, there is no cure in preventing this disease, but this study had proven that utilising both resistance and balance training is beneficial and can improve muscular strength and balance within an individual’s with IDP. As IDP impairs these features, incorporating the regular use of balance training by itself or with strength training can help to slow down the process.

-	All the points the intervention was targeting at had all resulted in positive outcomes with an increase in strength or an improvement in balance. Although, the intervention had been proven to be beneficial for people with IDP, the intervention could have been simplified for the target audience: elderly people.

-	Comparing this study to other research papers relating to Parkinson’s and PA, majority of the studies have shown that incorporating PA into one’s daily routine is extremely beneficial.

Practical advice
- Patients should seek medical advice from their doctor and take the recommended medication needed to treat IPD.

-	Any type of PA is useful for the patients as long as they are moving their body and using their motor skills. The main goal is to make sure they implement exercises that improve on balance or strength which can be done through keeping the exercises simple and entertaining. This can be done with partners or in a group, where if help is needed, it can be given.

-	To improve upon balance within people with IDP, balance exercise such as standing on one leg for a certain time limit is extremely beneficial.

-	To improve on muscular strength for adults with IDP, performing exercises focused on lower extremity is beneficial in increasing strength and maintaining optimal balance. Examples of body weight lower body exercises include squats, lunges or holding a wall sit.

-	Training sessions should last at least 15 - 30 mins.

-	Training should be performed on three non-consecutive days to decrease risk of injury.

Further information/resources
Further Readings:

- About Parkinson's Disease

- Postural Control in Elderly subjects with Balance training

- Strength Training in Parkinson's Disease

- Physical Activity for people with IPD

Support Groups for patients with PD:

- https://www.parkinson.org/

- https://www.parkinsonsnsw.org.au/services/support-groups/


text:
Talk:The Poetry of Gaius Valerius Catullus/Authors

Nice work, guys! Your appendix on the meters of Catullus is especially useful. Thanks again!


text:
User:Hellllothere/sandbox/Approaches to Knowledge/2020-21/Seminar group 6/Luiza Kohtanena

 * I accidentally "stole" a Latvian politician's cappuccino at a cafe
 * Until the age of 8 I believed that everyone around me was not a real person
 * After the first (and the last) time trying snowboarding, I could not get up from the bed for full 24 hours


text: Category:Pages with non-numeric formatnum arguments


text:
User:Vanished user 01020304

Talha Shakeel's WikiBooks Page.

title: User:Vanished user 01020304


text:
User:11er467va/sandbox

 * I lived in Barcelona as a child
 * I can fly planes
 * My family's nickname for me is Casper

title: User:11er467va/sandbox


text:
User:Ivoryallen/sandbox

 * 1) Terrified of birds- pigeons, ducks, swans, etc.
 * 2) Coached by a Zimbabwean olympic swimmer when younger
 * 3) Has over 2000 followers on TikTok

title: User:Ivoryallen/sandbox


text:
User:Hermes2012/sandbox/Approaches to Knowledge/2020-21/Seminar group 6/Victoire Moisset

1. In highschool I did an internship at the hospital, in the cardiothoracic surgery service. 2. I can shred the electric guitar. 3. When I was a kid, I saw someone having a heart attack.


text:
User:Wisdom-Vrs-Humility

Wikibooks - This is somewhat new to me. I have many ideas I am working on and wanting to work out and hoping others might join in with some of the things I would like to make happen. I think a lot about human suffering. I also think a lot about that episode on Seinfeld where George Castanza gets a rocking chair for the security guard at the clothing store. So Jerry was like "Are you feeling any suffering right now" in his high pitched tone - So George being a typical human can not see his own motives and wants to feel better about himself at the expense of the store owner. So easy for us to try to good things when really we are just wanting to appear smart or caring or whatever. It brings up a lot. What really is George the character really after? What is missing inside of himself that makes him this way? Feeling worthless inside maybe? Having no real sense of worth? Being treated a certain way in childhood that mangles that a person's mind. So when I say I think a lot about human suffering - truly do I actually give a crap? And who is judging me? And do I care? We are a society of children as Robert Bly puts it and he is right. Anytime people do things we always wonder what there true motives are and we wonder if any person actually has it together enough to actually make a difference. If we are after the gold star rewards and these are our motives - We are off track - And even when we think Ohh im not like those people who only do things for the social rewards of it all. Uhh huh then what are you? We have to find a place like what Depak Chopra talked about in his book the 7 spiritual laws of success. One of those laws I think the 3rd was talking about external justification and fear-based and spirit-based. And how people become so entangled with external rewards that they lose track. So often people understand how to gain power over others and they are in a position of power to ruin anyone who disagrees - But they have no clue about life. They do not know the way yet they are in charge and they will prove it to you. "Are ya feeling any suffering now" If we did not have humor how would we get through it all! So this is my first post. I still need to read the instructions for this site so Id better do that before I move forward.

title: User:Wisdom-Vrs-Humility


text:
User talk:Nicola.georgiou/sandbox/Approaches to Knowledge/Seminar group 13/Intro Exercise

Nicolas Gonzalez: Intro activity-

1) As a child I broke my nose by sprinting into a glass door. 2) I am am an avid writer and procrastination prone reader. 3) I was born in Spain.


text:
User:SteRos7/sandbox

This is Stefano's sandbox for Approaches to Knowledge - please click on the relevant link to access the sandbox for your seminar group.

 * Seminar Group 1 (Mondays 11-12)
 * Seminar Group 2 (Mondays 13-14)

title: User:SteRos7/sandbox


text:
User:SteRos7/sandbox/Approaches to Knowledge/Seminar 1

Welcome to the sandbox for Approaches to Knowledge seminar group 1, which meets on Mondays at 11 am-12 pm.

Below are links to pages on the issues that we will be covering in the first half of term.

 * History
 * Evidence
 * Truth
 * Power


text:
User:SteRos7/sandbox/Approaches to Knowledge/Seminar 2

Welcome to the sandbox for Approaches to Knowledge seminar group 2, which meets on Mondays at 1 pm-2 pm.

Below are links to pages on the issues that we will be covering in the first half of term.

 * History
 * Evidence
 * Truth
 * Power


text:
User:Lucky Lilac Lion/sandbox

 * 1
 * 2
 * 3

Garrett Hardin wrote an article about the tragedy of the commons.

title: User:Lucky Lilac Lion/sandbox


text:
Aymara/Numerals

Ordinals

 * First : nayriri, nayanquiri
 * Second : payiri, payanquiri
 * Thirth : quimsiri, quisanquiri
 * Fourth : pusiri, pusinquiri
 * Fifth : pheskeri, pheskanquiri
 * Sixth : sojjtiri, sojjtanquiri
 * Seventh : pakallkori, pakallkonquiri
 * Eighth : quimsakallkori, quimsakallkonquiri
 * Ninth : llätunquiri, llätuncanquiri
 * Tenth : tunquiri, tuncanquiri

Percentages

 * 1% - Sapa patakat maya
 * 2% - Sapa patakat paya
 * 3% - Sapa patakat kinsa
 * 4% - Sapa patakat pusi
 * 5% - Sapa patakat pishka
 * 6% - Sapa patakat suxta
 * 7% - Sapa patakat paqalqu
 * 8% - Sapa patakat kinsaqalqu
 * 9% - Sapa patakat llatunka
 * 10% - Sapa patakat tunka
 * 21% - Sapa patakat pä tunk mayani

title: Aymara/Numerals


text:
Aymara/Verbs

 * to have : -nītwa
 * to be : -wa
 * I am a teacher :  Nayax yatichirït wa
 * -nni
 * There's pasturage :  qullcha nni
 * drink : lima
 * I drink : umtwa

title: Aymara/Verbs


text:
English-Hanzi/Yoga is a group of physical, mental and spiritual practices

Yoga is a group of physical, mental and spiritual practices or disciplines that originated in ancient India. Yoga is one of the six schools of Hindu tradition.

瑜伽是起源于古代印度的一组身体，心理和精神的实践或学科. 瑜伽是印度教传统的六个派别之一.


text:
English-Hanzi/Yoga is an exercise mainly composed of a series of postures

Yoga is an exercise mainly composed of a series of postures, sometimes accompanied by breathing exercises, and usually ends with lying down or meditating to relax.

瑜伽是一种主要由一系列姿势组成的运动，有时还伴有呼吸运动，通常以躺下或冥想放松为结束.


text: User talk:118.136.7.230

title: User talk:118.136.7.230


text:
Type-oriented programming

Type-oriented programming is a paradigm spanning both object-oriented and functional approaches to writing statically typed code. Most programming languages in this category make extensive use of subtyping and parametric polymorphism.

This material introduces the basic concepts, most of them known from object-oriented and functional languages, and then goes on to explain some more involved techniques used in languages with powerful type systems.

Table of Contents

 * Basic concepts

/Types and properties/

/Instance methods/

/Type methods/

/Restricted properties/

/Function types/

/Proxies/

 * Type operators

/Type arguments/

‘Self’ at the type level

/Type variance/

/Bounded type arguments/

 * Types of higher kinds

/Functors/

/Monads/

/Monad transformers/

title: Type-oriented programming


text:
User talk:Typologiste

--Synoman Barris (discuss • contribs) 12:05, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

title: User talk:Typologiste