Grand Theories and Local Findings

Philosophy and Experimental Practice

Produkt bewerten

Michael M Nikoletseas

Verlag:

Independently Published

Unsere-Artikel-Nr.: P35158866

EAN: 9798187274734

Erhältlich:

Nicht auf Lager

Zustellung: Di, 08.09.2026

Versand: Kostenlos

CHF 40.–

Beschreibung

Are our scientific theories built on biological realities-or mathematical abstractions. In Grand Theories and Local Findings: Philosophy and Experimental Practice. , scholar and author Michael M. Nikoletseas exposes a profound, unexamined chasm at the heart of modern empirical inquiry: the gap between how scientific knowledge is rationalized in theory and how it is actually manufactured at the laboratory bench. While traditional philosophy of science remains preoccupied with grand theories, bold conjectures, and the elegant drama of Popperian falsification, the day-to-day machinery of the modern laboratory operates in a completely different key. It is finding-driven, highly localized, and structurally dependent on complex mathematical and statistical interventions that actively mediate between the physical phenomenon and the published claim. Using single-neuron electrophysiology as a rigorous case study, this monograph walks the reader through the intricate pipeline of laboratory translation. Nikoletseas demonstrates that the "neuron of the literature"-celebrated in both scientific journals and philosophical mind-body debates-is not a directly observed biological structure. Instead, it is a highly processed, mathematically stabilized proxy, co-authored by analog-to-digital bandpass filters, arbitrary clustering boundaries in reduced dimensional spaces, and continuous smoothing kernels. Going deeper, the book delivers a razor-sharp critique of the statistical architecture that underwrites nearly all contemporary biological claims. It dissects the unholy, hybrid marriage of Null Hypothesis Significance Testing (NHST)-revealing the silent conceptual warfare between Ronald Fisher's inductive p. -value and the Neyman-Pearson long-run error-control framework. By exposing how this hybridity forces biological complexity to conform to idealized Gaussian and Poisson geometries, Nikoletseas reveals the systematic roots of modern experimental pathologies, from the replication crisis to the inflation of empirical claims. Far from a work of pure skepticism, Grand Theories and Local Findings. offers a constructive, vital path forward: a programmatic manifesto for an "epistemic realism of the bench. ". It establishes a double-demarcation, rejecting both the naive realism of transparent data and the relativism of social constructivism. In their place, it defends the quiet, durable dignity of the modest, highly localized finding. Written with clinical precision and philosophical gravity, this book is an indispensable resource for qualitative and quantitative philosophers of science, epistemologists, neuroscientists, and any reader searching for the true boundaries of empirical certainty and scientific expression. Key Features for Sales Catalogs: Interdisciplinary Bridge:. Blends rigorous, first-hand knowledge of electrophysiological laboratory methods with classic and contemporary philosophy of science. Critical Statistical Analysis:. Offers an accessible yet uncompromising deconstruction of NHST, Fisherian evidence, and Neyman-Pearson decision theory without relying on dense mathematical jargon. A Cure for "Theory Inflation". Provides a timely, much-needed philosophical framework to address the modern replication crisis in the life sciences.

Spezifikationen

Sprache

Englisch

Autor

Michael M Nikoletseas

Erscheinungsjahr

2026

Format

Buch (Softcover)

Anzahl Seiten