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Leprosy is a human infectious disease caused by Mycobacterium leprae or Mycobacterium lepromatosis that can also occur in animals and even manifest as zoonosis. Recently, both mycobacteria were detected in red squirrels (Sciurus vulgaris) from the British Isles. To further explore the presence of leprosy-bacilli in North-West Europe, we screened Belgian and Dutch squirrels. Tissue samples from 115 animals tested by qPCR were negative for both pathogens. No molecular or pathological evidence was found of the presence of these zoonotic pathogens in North-West Europe.

This is the third interview in the journal’s new “Conversations” section. Drawn from my broader project Interviews with Researchers from the Anthropology, History, and Sociology of Pharmaceuticals: Mapping Out the Area, the following discussion features Professor Toine Pieters. From his early years of lab work in the Netherlands, to his move into social sciences and history, Pieters followed a path that stretched from studying molecules to analyzing their historicization. In the course of our discussion, he adopted a didactic approach, while not losing any analytical profundity, and he addressed several topics that will certainly interest drugs studies scholars. The conversation covers such subjects as the forgotten pasts of certain pharmaceuticals; the social appeal and promises embedded in “wonder drugs”; the agency of therapeutic drugs; the co-construction of drugs, diseases, and their handlers; the social interaction between doctors and patients; and the role of promise, hope, faith, and fashion in medicine and, particularly, in pharmaceuticals.

Recent trends toward both experimental philosophy and digital philosophy seem to have begun collapsing the distinction between scientific and philosophical methodology. In at least some cases, philosophers are turning toward empirical methods, in the process having to consider how those methods should be put in dialogue with traditional philosophical questions and approaches. In this talk, I want to pick up on an element of this methodological discussion in the context of digital philosophy of science. Digital humanities (and, by extension, digital philosophy) is, at its heart, a “big data” discipline. It is not uncommon to perform analyses on dozens or hundreds of books, or thousands or tens of thousands of journal articles, in an effort to extract generalizations about scientific practice that can, in turn, be used to ground philosophical claims (Lean, Pence, and Rivelli forthcoming). This poses a variety of interesting problems, already familiar to any well-versed data scientist. Analyses performed on any dataset of such a size will offer significant problems of noise. A number of spurious correlations are certain to be present (for a humorous visualization of the problem, see https://tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations). Temptations to simply “read off” philosophical conclusions from the data themselves should be resisted; any philosophical conclusion of merit will require significant human interpretation (boyd and Crawford 2012). One common proactive way to approach these problems and others like them is to turn toward hypothesis-driven research. Specific, testable, empirical hypotheses about the content of the literature can be evaluated with the aid of digital tools, if we clearly know what it would mean for them to succeed or fail. What is less clear, I think, are the answers two further questions. First, how does the evidence of the success or failure of such a hypothesis lead to confirmation or disconfirmation of generalizations about scientific practice, which are in turn the ingredients we hope to use to build novel claims in the philosophy of science? And second, what are the disadvantages of such a method? How can we balance the utility of these digital approaches as tools for discovery of unexpected trends in the sciences with the risk that we will simply see the connections that we want to see? For all that these are widely acknowledged questions, the ways in which they might bear on digital philosophy of science are less clear. I hope in this talk to take some first steps toward an analysis of these issues, with the goal of offering insight for philosophers of science that is both theoretically grounded (in an understanding of the utility of empirical generalizations about scientific practice for the philosophy of science) and practically useful (in that it can give philosophers advice about how to formulate and use such hypotheses).

In times of corona the pressure at work among healthcare professionals increases, citizens experience more stress and the number of incidents of domestic violence rises. With past events in mind (SARS) a big increase of PTSD cases is to be expected within the next few years because of these consequences. PTSD causes depression, memory problems, mental and physical complaints, substance abuse and eventually possibly incapacity for work or suicidality. Existing treatments in The Netherlands help against symptoms, but the long term benefi ts are limited. Preliminary research results show that the combination of psychotherapy and MDMA can achieve signifi cantly better therapeutic results. In a controlled clinical setting the benefi t/risk ratio seems to be favorable. More research is needed to confirm these findings.

ACHTERGROND Lsd en andere hallucinogenen of psychedelica waren vanaf de Tweede Wereldoorlog tot in de jaren tachtig in gebruik als therapeutische middelen in de psychiatrie. De afgelopen jaren is er in de medische wetenschappen een toenemende interesse voor hernieuwd therapeutisch gebruik en onderzoek naar de effecten van deze middelen. DOEL Het plaatsen van het huidige wetenschappelijke onderzoek van lsd in de context van eerder onderzoek. METHODE Een systematische literatuurstudie naar het psychiatrisch gebruik van lsd en de maatschappelijke reacties daarop. RESULTATEN Vanaf 1947 is lsd onder meer toegepast in de behandeling van angsten en depressies, verslaving, en posttraumatische stoornissen. Vanaf begin jaren zestig kwam er kritiek op het gebruik, deels vanwege zorgen over het oproepen van psychosen, en deels vanwege de opkomst van niet-medisch gebruik. Er is echter nog geen duidelijk wetenschappelijk bewijs geleverd voor hetzij de voordelen, hetzij de nadelen van lsd-therapie. CONCLUSIE Het valt nog niet te voorspellen of lsd en andere psychedelica een comeback zullen gaan maken in de psychiatrie. In het huidige onderzoek probeert men elke maatschappelijke controverse te vermijden en een nieuwe evidence-base op te bouwen. Daarbij staat dit onderzoek wel in een directe continuïteit met eerder lsd-onderzoek. BACKGROUND: lsd and other hallucinogens or psychedelics have been therapeutically used in psychiatry in the period between the Second World War and the late 1980s. In the past years renewed interest in the medical sciences for research and therapeutic use of these substances has evolved. AIM: A discussion of contemporary lsd research in the context of earlier research. METHOD: A systematic survey of the literature on the psychiatric use of lsd and the reactions towards lsd use in society. RESULTS: Since 1947 lsd has been therapeutically used in the treatment of anxiety, depression, addiction, post traumatic disorders, and other conditions. Since the early 1960s this use has been criticized because of the danger of evoking psychoses in patients, and because of the rise of a widespread non-medical use. However, there is no consolidated evidence-base for either the positive or the negative outcomes of lsd therapy. CONCLUSION: At this moment it is unpredictable whether lsd will make a comeback in psychiatry. Contemporary research attempts to evade all public controversy and to build up a solid evidence-base. Nevertheless it demonstrates a direct continuity with earlier research.

According to the Dutch colonizers in Suriname, leprosy (or Hansen’s disease) was highly contagious and transmitted from human-to-human. A “cordon sanitaire” was constructed around the patients, mainly African slaves and Asian indentured laborers and their descendants. They were tracked down and incarcerated in remote leprosy settlements located in the rainforest. Some patients obeyed the authorities while others resisted and rebelled. Their narratives, revealing conceptual entanglement of the disease with their culture and the Surinamese natural environment, contain important information for understanding their world and their life inside and outside of leprosy settlements. They combined traditional health practices and medicinal plants from their natural habitat with biomedical treatments (practicing medical pluralism). They believed in a diversity of disease explanations, predominantly the taboo concepts treef, tyina, and totem animals associated with their natural habitat (the Surinamese biome). Some of their imaginary explanations (e.g., “leprosy is carried and/or transmitted through soil and certain animals”) show a surprising analogy with recent findings from leprosy scientists. Our research shows that nature contributes to shaping the world of Hansen’s disease patients. An ecological approach can make a valuable contribution to understanding their world. Comparative historical and anthropological research needs to be conducted to map the influence of different biomes on local explanatory models. The now deserted Hansen’s disease settlements and their natural environments are interesting research sites and important places of cultural heritage.

BackgroundLeprosy is an infectious disease caused byMycobacterium lepraeandMycobacterium lepromatosisaffecting the skin and nerves. Despite decades of availability of adequate treatment, transmission is unabated and routes of transmission are not completely understood. Notwithstanding the general assumption that untreatedM. lepraeinfected humans represent the major source of transmission, scarce reports indicate that environmental specimens could play a role as a reservoir as well.MethodologyIn order to identify patterns of bacterial transmission, this study investigated whetherM. lepraeDNA is present in soil of regions where leprosy is endemic or areas with possible animal reservoirs (armadillos and red squirrels). Soil samples were collected in Bangladesh, Suriname and the British Isles. The presence ofM. lepraeDNA was determined by RLEP PCR andM. lepraeSNP types were further identified by Sanger sequencing of loci 1-3.ResultsM. lepraeDNA was identified in soil samples from environments inhabited by leprosy patients (Bangladesh), armadillos (Suriname) and the lepromatous Eurasian red squirrels (British Isles). In Bangladesh SNP type 1 was detected, Suriname soil contained SNP type 1 or 2, whilst SNP typing was not feasible for the British samples.ConclusionsIt is conceivable that, besides humans and animals, environmental reservoirs may play a role in transmission. Frequent, intense contact with multibacillary leprosy patients poses the highest risk of transmission, and even though the risk of environmental contamination is low, it may offer a possible explanation for the occurrence of leprosy in individuals in areas without any reported human leprosy.

Biological market theory has in recent years become an important part of the social evolutionist’s toolkit. This article discusses the explanatory potential and pitfalls of biological market theory in the context of big picture accounts of the evolution of human cooperation and morality. I begin by assessing an influential account that presents biological market dynamics as a key driver of the evolution of fairness norms in humans. I argue that this account is problematic for theoretical, empirical, and conceptual reasons. After mapping the evidential and explanatory limits of biological market theory, I suggest that it can nevertheless fill a lacuna in an alternative account of hominin evolution. Trade on a biological marketplace can help explain why norm-based cooperation did not break down when our Late Pleistocene ancestors entered new, challenging social and economic environments. 1 Introduction 1.1 Conditions for biological markets 2 Modelling the Cooperation Market 2.1 Cooperation markets and the evolution of equitable divisions 2.2 Markets without market dynamics? 3 Markets and Evolutionary Continuity 4 Markets, Reputation-Escalation, and Fairness 4.1 The target of reputational concern 5 An Alternative Scenario 5.1 Fairness before markets 5.2 Markets and the reciprocation crisis

Macroscopic realism is the thesis that macroscopically observable properties must always have definite values. The idea was introduced by Leggett and Garg (1985), who wished to show a conflict with the predictions of quantum theory. However, their analysis required not just the assumption of macroscopic realism per se, but also that the observable properties could be measured non-invasively. In recent years there has been increasing interest in experimental tests of the violation of the Leggett-Garg inequality, but it has remained a matter of controversy whether this second assumption is a reasonable requirement for a macroscopic realist view of quantum theory. In a recent critical assessment Maroney and Timpson (2017) identified three different categories of macroscopic realism, and argued that only the simplest category could be ruled out by Leggett-Garg inequality violations. Allen, Maroney, and Gogioso (2016) then showed that the second of these approaches was also incompatible with quantum theory in Hilbert spaces of dimension 4 or higher. However, we show that the distinction introduced by Maroney and Timpson between the second and third approaches is not noise tolerant, so unfortunately Allen's result, as given, is not directly empirically testable. In this paper we replace Maroney and Timpson's three categories with a parameterization of macroscopic realist models, which can be related to experimental observations in a noise tolerant way, and recover the original definitions in the noise-free limit. We show how this parameterization can be used to experimentally rule out classes of macroscopic realism in Hilbert spaces of dimension 3 or higher, including the category tested by the Leggett-Garg inequality, without any use of the non-invasive measurability assumption., 20 pages, 10 figures

A popular narrative about the history of modern biology has it that Ernst Mayr introduced the distinction between “typological thinking” and “population thinking” to mark a contrast between a metaphysically problematic and a promising foundation for (evolutionary) biology, respectively. This narrative sometimes continues with the observation that, since the late-20th century, typological concepts have been making a comeback in biology, primarily in the context of evolutionary developmental biology. It is hard to square this narrative with the historical and philosophical literature on the typology/population distinction from the last decade or so. The conclusion that emerges from this literature is that the very distinction between typological thinking and population thinking is a piece of mere rhetoric that was concocted and rehearsed for purely strategic, programmatic reasons. If this is right, it becomes hard to make sense of recent criticisms (and sometimes: espousals) of the purportedly typological underpinnings of certain contemporary research programs. In this article, I offer a way out of this apparent conflict. I show that we can make historical and philosophical sense of the continued accusations of typological thinking by looking beyond Mayr, to his contemporary and colleague George Gaylord Simpson. I show that before Mayr discussed the typology/population distinction as an issue in scientific metaphysics, Simpson introduced it to mark several contrasts in methodology and scientific practice. I argue that Simpson's insightful discussion offers useful resources for classifying and assessing contemporary attributions of typological thinking.

Galen is criticized for combining Plato’s tripartition-cum-trilocation of the soul, in which each part constitutes its own source of motivation, with the demand that the faculty of voluntary motion is limited to the rational part, being the only one located in the brain and having access to the relevant nerves. While scholars have concentrated on small nerves as connective organs, this paper focuses on thepneuma, blood and innate heat. When the latter is increased, the irrational parts can affect the brain’s function to such an extent that the rational part’s volitions are reduced to their own desires.

A consensus seems to have developed that the Gibbs paradox in classical thermodynamics (the discontinuous drop in the entropy of mixing when the mixed gases become equal to each other) is unmysterious: in any actual situation, two gases can be separated or not, and the associated harmless discontinuity from &ldquo, yes&rdquo, to &ldquo, no&rdquo, is responsible for the discontinuity. By contrast, the Gibbs paradox in statistical physics continues to attract attention. Here, the problem is that standard calculations in statistical mechanics predict a non-vanishing value of the entropy of mixing even when two gases of the same kind are mixed, in conflict with thermodynamic predictions. This version of the Gibbs paradox is often seen as a sign that there is something fundamentally wrong with either the traditional expression S=klnW or with the way W is calculated. It is the aim of this article to review the situation from the orthodox (as opposed to information theoretic) standpoint. We demonstrate how the standard formalism is not only fully capable of dealing with the paradox, but also provides an intuitively clear picture of the relevant physical mechanisms. In particular, we pay attention to the explanatory relevance of the existence of particle trajectories in the classical context. We also discuss how the paradox survives the transition to quantum mechanics, in spite of the symmetrization postulates.

In Adversus Praxean 5.5–7 and Apologeticum 21.10–13 the Christian author Tertullian (c. 160– 240 CE) draws on Stoic sources, in particular texts associated with the second Stoic scholarch Cleanthes (c. 330–230 BCE). These passages not only throw light on Tertullian’s aims but also bear witness to Cleanthes’ development of the concept of πνεῦμα as the creative and life-sustaining warmth and his interest in it as the vehicle of discourse, i.e. of voice and personae. This opened up new ways of accounting for psychological phenomena within the framework of Stoic psychological monism. Given the Stoic whole-and-parts scheme, it also served to explain forms of our communion with the divine, conceptualized as a divine voice within us – supported by an analogy to the cosmic role of the sun. Keywords: dialogue; intellect; God; person; pneuma; Stoicism; sun; trinity; voice In Adversus Praxean 5.5–7 and Apologeticum 21.10–13 bezieht sich der christliche Autor Tertullian (160–240 n. Chr.) auf stoische Quellen, insbesondere auf Texte, die mit dem Scholarch Kleanthes (um 330–230 v. Chr.) verbunden sind. Diese Passagen werfen nicht nur ein Licht auf Tertullians Absichten, sondern bezeugen auch Kleanthes’ Entwicklung des πνεῦμα-Konzepts als kreative und lebenserhaltende Wärme sowie sein Interesse daran als Vehikel des Diskurses, d.h. von Stimme und personae. Dieser Ansatz eröffnete neue Wege, psychologische Phänomene innerhalb des psychologischen Monismus der Stoa auszumachen. Im Hinblick auf das Ganze-und-Teile-Schema diente es auch dazu, Formen unserer Teilhabe am Göttlichen zu erklären, konzeptualisiert als göttliche Stimme in uns – unterstützt durch die Analogie der kosmischen Rolle der Sonne.

Future historians writing about the COVID-19 crisis will need to pay more attention to the atmosphere and its role in the current crisis, for the atmosphere is connected to the current pandemic in multiple ways: the atmosphere transports aerosols; it changes as a consequence of the social crisis; air pollution and COVID-19 deaths seem to be connected; there is a triple crisis of ‘oxygen-depriving politics’; and air travel has a large effect on the transmission of the disease. Increasingly, atmosphere scientists are contributing to the science of COVID-19. Dealing with the atmosphere is useful for another reason too: in the current age, atmosphere physicists and chemists have become key architects of the Anthropocene concept, and the meteorological sciences are increasingly claiming a stake in the environmental humanities. Environmental historians who attribute a larger role to the atmosphere would be wise to follow recent trends in the larger ‘geohumanities’, a new field that has exported the meteorologists’ atmosphere into the humanities. At the same time, environmental historians could also benefit from engaging with the history of knowledge about air, not just late modern meteorology, but also early modern physics and chemistry, and the pre-nineteenth century medical sciences that were less hesitant about dealing with the air. Historians should acquire what I call an ‘atmospheric sensibility’ by looking at the sensibility of atmosphere scientists of the past. Studying this sensibility means observing the way in which meteorological experts have used this knowledge to expand their discipline, in both the scientific and public realm. This knowledge can then be elevated to both create and strengthen specific themes in the environmental history of health. Areas of research could include, among many other possibilities, the difference between indoor and open-air work, or the importance of respiration, physiology and lung medicine in history. First acquiring and then deepening our atmospheric sensibility will provide a better understanding of the environmental history of health and pandemics in the current geological epoch.

Throughout the twentieth century, funding bodies have become a dominant force in scientific practice, influencing the success of certain types of research as well as certain types of researchers. As a late modern institution, they are part of a process of rationalization and planning in science. At the same time, however, funding bodies draw upon resources such as trust and familiarity that are usually identified as premodern.

The now infamous rewilding experiment in the Dutch Oostvaardersplassen was terminated in 2018 as a consequence of repeated public outcries against the massive crashes of the reserve’s herbivore populations during severe winters, particularly the winter of 2017–2018. This essay discusses the background and aims of the experiment and analyzes the causes of its failure. It argues that one of the main causes was the general public’s conception of nature as a self-regulating whole that strives for equilibrium, a notion with deep historical roots. The experts involved in the project not only paid insufficient attention to this expectation; they even strengthened it at times, inadvertently or not. If the management regime of the reserve had been better attuned to the public’s anxieties about the wildly fluctuating herbivore populations, the 2018 fiasco might have been prevented.

In this paper, we propose a methodological operationalization of “public debates” as we focus on the research process of CLARIAH research pilot Debate Research Across Media (DReAM). In this pilot, heterogeneous datasets (of digitized print and audiovisual media) were made search-able with tools of the CLARIAH Media Suite, using the leveled research approach that we coined previously (combining distant and close reading) to do historical public debate analysis. The qualitative research interest in public debates on drugs and regulation is historical, but in order to bridge the gap between distant and close reading of the combined digital datasets, a number of insights from media studies is taken into consideration. The natures of the different media, the type of analysis and focus on the source material itself, and the necessity to combine historical expertise with a sensibility towards discursive relations are all considered before we argue that the accommodation of this approach in the Media Suite helps the researcher to gain an improved understanding of historical public debates in mass media.

This paper presents a sketch of a moderately anti-realist position in philosophy of science that is a modification of Van Fraassen’s constructive empiricism and that I call ‘adaptive empiricism’. This modification is motivated by the intuition that assessing what is or is not observable should be an important element of theory choice for an empiricist. (I use cases of underdetermination as examples.) Thus I argue that Van Fraassen’s distinction between what is observable and what is unobservable should be adapted to changing theoretical and experimental contexts. I close with some ideas as to how to develop this position more fully.