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Scientific Understanding

This page is incomplete. It displays memoes and/or notes.

Title Memo

Science is often thought of as a body of proven knowledge, but it is also a process for minimizing the weaknesses in out ability to understand complex things.

Note Text: 19 Secondary gain

As the influential sociologist Talcott Parsons theorized, "The privileges and exemptions of the sick role may become objects of 'secondary gain' which the patient is positively motivated, usually unconsciously, to secure or retain."

Wailoo, Keith, "Pain: a political history", Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014, 55

Note Text: 1067 Stress as subjective experience

The focus on reflexes in twentieth-century physiology and psychology led to definitions of pain in terms of escape, avoidance and other 'aversive behaviors.'...Research on the language of pain--the words we use to describe the sensory, affective and cognitive qualities of our pains--has produced questionnaires that allo....

Melzack, R. and Wall, P. D., "The Challenge of Pain (Reprint of 1988 edition)", Penguin Books, 2008, xii

Note Text: 1500 Self-deception affects disciplines that are social

Among his theses, “the more social a discipline, the more its development is retarded by self-deception.” [6]

Trivers, Robert, "The Folly of Fools", Basic Books, 2011, 6

Note Text: 1542 Smart to lie more

Because of the link between deception and self-deception, the intelligent may be expected to be better at both. “…we should expect the intellectually gifted are especially prone to deceit and self-deception, including in many of the academic disciplines they produce.” [91]

Trivers, Robert, "The Folly of Fools", Basic Books, 2011, 91

Note Text: 1722 Scientific thinking is unnatural

In contrast to the default cognitive modules, which provide “common sense” or “prima facie” or “intuitive” understanding, scientific findings can’t be understood intuitively, but must be studied on. Since scientific reasoning is not natural and simple, it needs some motivation and effort to succeed.

Pinker, Steven, "The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature", Viking, 2002, 221

End of included memoes/notes

You might suppose that by reading my book you've been understanding pain scientifically. Actually, you've been reading what I've had to say based on my understanding of some recent textbooks and scientific papers. I've been trying to convey what I understand as clearly and accurately as I can without being tiresome. I've provided endnotes that identify sources so that you can check it out, perhaps verify that my interpretation is reasonable, perhaps challenge my interpretation, maybe look into what sort of research supports the "facts" as I've presented them. I've tried to make it clear when I'm presenting my own opinion about something.