Volume 4, Issue 2
December 2009
David Hegstad
Page 4 of 4
Although “Conjectures and Refutations” utilizes a vocabulary and categorical analysis that is familiar to my education, I prefer a narration used in an earlier lecture when considering Popper’s address:
These observations undoubtedly appear obvious in the context of this essay; one must consider at great length, however, their scope and implications. Popper is herein proposing that: 1) because scientists have a natural tendency to confirm their own theories instead of opposing them, it is unwise to conduct science in environments where external factors (such as publication deadlines and budgets) influence internal factors; 2-5) two minds work better than one, and two people with different experiences and educational backgrounds are more likely to conduct well-rounded experiments than two people with similar backgrounds; and 6) conducting scientific research within a consistently diverse community promotes individuals’ integrity.
If we are to apply Popper’s observations not to my personal experiences but the H Index itself, we identify three natural conflicts: the H Index is bolstered by a hybridization of external and internal conflicts; relies on confidentiality through independence in research; and encourages participation among partisan communities in favor of self-reference. We also find that, although the H Index has increased performance of qualified researchers (particularly in recent years); it has potentially reduced the well-roundedness of publications in which the index is considered. In the near future, as global initiatives dominate public interests via the public sector, it is possible and perhaps likely that revisions will be made to the H Index. In the event of such revisions, I believe foremost among them will be a chronological database that catalogs the findings of research institutions regardless of their publications. In the spirit of Popper’s famous analogy, the discovery of a white swan [1] should not formulate the statement that all swans are white; it should instead encourage observations contrary to this finding (many species of swans south of the equator are in fact black). As the costs of communication (and globalization, for that matter) lessen, participation of an international community is a scientific necessity, particularly in the context of diverse and well-communicated observation.
If we are to apply Popper’s observations to the NHGRP’s success, we recognize that the environment provided for scientific research was nigh unparalleled: a committed board of directors with no stated personal objectives utilized a national public sector and non-profit organizations, while relying on an international consortium to maintain a balanced perspective through diversity. Private sectors will inevitably recognize this level of participation in the future and may seek not to compete to achieve results, but instead may look to facilitate methods to assist in the observation and collection of data; therein, we may yet find a vast and untapped market, private firms that rely on equal contributions from an array of professional fields to develop such methods.
As we continue to experience globalization and exponential technological development, Popper’s lessons are increasingly inherent to our societies. Among scientific communities, there is an increasing awareness of strengths and weaknesses inherent to public and private sectors, as well as not-for-profit organizations, which provide an opportunity for high budget operations to make use of each. Proliferation of personal computers encourages benevolent cooperation between engineers, linguists, artists, and mathematicians (at the most fundamental levels), while simultaneously establishing a market for products used in scientific research. The internet and public databases therein have also provided an unprecedented wealth of accessible information, which provides professionals an opportunity to interact with one another, as well as communicate new ideas to hosts of amateurs. It is only natural for us to begin to recognize the fundamental themes of our success and to reconfigure our institutions—scientific first and foremost—accordingly.
The developing sense of human sciences—not merely the term used to describe social sciences in recent history, but a practicum of sciences relevant to human preservation—is also infusing our cultures; it is for this reason that an executive proclamation stating the human genome may not be patented is viewed as an ethical achievement. As geopolitics continues to expand and take responsibility for global issues, we may expect to see an increase in such proclamations in the near future, as well as amendments to patents that may already be in use. This is not an accusation that the private sector does not participate in global issues; it is instead an acknowledgment that increases to technology as it relates to human life—particularly medicine—bestow great obligations upon an international community. In recent months, the application of such practices has produced our greatest step in finding a vaccine for HIV—in what may be considered an ethical dilemma (let us not forget that technology is inevitably one step ahead of morality)—wherein an international consortium involving participation of public and private sectors shared this vision. Imagine what we may accomplish tomorrow.
[1]. White swan – a term made popular by Karl Popper. Popper asserted that a hypothesis, proposition, or theory is scientific only if it is falsifiable. [T]he statement all swans are white is testable by being falsifiable. For, if in testing many swans, the researcher finds a single black swan, then the statement all swans are white would be falsified by the counterexample of the single black swan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability October 29, 2009 4:27PM EST
Bio
David R. Hegstad is a perpetual college student (since a week before his sixteenth birthday), studying in California, Washington, Maryland and Washington, D.C. At seventeen, after taking an externship program in internal medicine, David became involved in 3rd World Healthcare. Currently an accountant with Handel & Associates in Maryland, he hopes his volunteer efforts will compel him to pursue a Masters in Public Health. David plans to retire to the Horn of Africa, proud to return to the cradle of civilization.