refutable

　

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1. 論破できる,反証の余地のある
2. (事実・論理・証拠などが)反ばくできない

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出典(authority):フリー百科事典『ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』「2014/03/04 13:57:36」(JST)

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Are all swans white?

Falsifiability or refutability of a statement, hypothesis, or theory is an inherent possibility to prove it to be false. A statement is called falsifiable if it is possible to conceive an observation or an argument which proves the statement in question to be false. In this sense, falsify is synonymous with nullify, meaning not "to commit fraud" but "show to be false". Some philosophers argue that science must be falsifiable.

For example, by the problem of induction, no number of confirming observations can verify a universal generalization, such as All swans are white, yet it is logically possible to falsify it by observing a single black swan. Thus, the term falsifiability is sometimes synonymous to testability. Some statements, such as It will be raining here in one million years, are falsifiable in principle, but not in practice.

The concern with falsifiability gained attention by way of philosopher of science Karl Popper's scientific epistemology "falsificationism". Popper stresses the problem of demarcation—distinguishing the scientific from the unscientific—and makes falsifiability the demarcation criterion, such that what is unfalsifiable is classified as unscientific, and the practice of declaring an unfalsifiable theory to be scientifically true is pseudoscience. This is often epitomized in Wolfgang Pauli famously saying, of an argument that fails to be scientific because it cannot be falsified by experiment, "it is not only not right, it is not even wrong!"

Overview

The classical view of the philosophy of science is that it is the goal of science to prove hypotheses like "All swans are white" or to induce them from observational data. Popper argued that this would require the inference of a general rule from a number of individual cases, which is inadmissible in deductive logic. However, if one finds one single black swan, deductive logic admits the conclusion that the statement that all swans are white is false. Falsificationism thus strives for questioning, for falsification, of hypotheses instead of proving them.

For a statement to be questioned using observation, it needs to be at least theoretically possible that it can come in conflict with observation. A key observation of falsificiationism is thus that a criterion of demarcation is needed to distinguish those statements that can come in conflict with observation and those that cannot (Chorlton, 2012). Popper chose falsifiability as the name of this criterion.

My proposal is based upon an asymmetry between verifiability and falsifiability; an asymmetry which results from the logical form of universal statements. For these are never derivable from singular statements, but can be contradicted by singular statements.

—Karl Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery, p. 19.

Popper stressed that unfalsifiable statements are important in science. Contrary to intuition, unfalsifiable statements can be embedded in - and deductively entailed by - falsifiable theories. For example, while "all men are mortal" is unfalsifiable, it is a logical consequence of the falsifiable theory that "every man dies before he reaches the age of 150 years". Similarly, the ancient metaphysical and unfalsifiable idea of the existence of atoms has led to corresponding falsifiable modern theories. Popper invented the notion of metaphysical research programs to name such unfalsifiable ideas. In contrast to Positivism, which held that statements are meaningless if they cannot be verified or falsified, Popper claimed that falsifiability is merely a special case of the more general notion of criticizability, even though he admitted that empirical refutation is one of the most effective methods by which theories can be criticized. Criticizability, in contrast to falsifiability, and thus rationality, may be comprehensive (i.e., have no logical limits), though this claim is controversial even among proponents of Popper's philosophy and critical rationalism.

Naive falsification

Two types of statements: observational and categorical

In work beginning in the 1930s, Popper gave falsifiability a renewed emphasis as a criterion of empirical statements in science.

Popper noticed that two types of statements are of particular value to scientists.

The first are statements of observations, such as "there is a white swan." Logicians call these statements singular existential statements, since they assert the existence of some particular thing. They are equivalent to a predicate calculus statement of the form: There exists an x such that x is a swan, and x is white.

The second are statements that categorize all instances of something, such as "all swans are white". Logicians call these statements universal. They are usually parsed in the form: For all x, if x is a swan, then x is white. Scientific laws are commonly supposed to be of this type. One difficult question in the methodology of science is: How does one move from observations to laws? How can one validly infer a universal statement from any number of existential statements?

Inductivist methodology supposed that one can somehow move from a series of singular existential statements to a universal statement. That is, that one can move from 'this is a white swan', 'that is a white swan', and so on, to a universal statement such as 'all swans are white.' This method is clearly deductively invalid, since it is always possible that there may be a non-white swan that has eluded observation (and, in fact, the discovery of the Australian black swan demonstrated the deductive invalidity of this particular statement).

Inductive categorical inference

Popper held that science could not be grounded on such an inferential basis. He proposed falsification as a solution to the problem of induction. Popper noticed that although a singular existential statement such as 'there is a white swan' cannot be used to affirm a universal statement, it can be used to show that one is false: the singular existential observation of a black swan serves to show that the universal statement 'all swans are white' is false—in logic this is called modus tollens. 'There is a black swan' implies 'there is a non-white swan,' which, in turn, implies 'there is something that is a swan and that is not white', hence 'all swans are white' is false, because that is the same as 'there is nothing that is a swan and that is not white'.

One notices a white swan. From this one can conclude:

At least one swan is white.

From this, one may wish to conjecture:

All swans are white.

It is impractical to observe all the swans in the world to verify that they are all white.

Even so, the 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.

Deductive falsification

Deductive falsification is different from an absence of verification. The falsification of statements occurs through modus tollens, via some observation. Suppose some universal statement U forbids some observation O:

Observation O, however, is made:

So by modus tollens,

Although the logic of naïve falsification is valid, it is rather limited. Nearly any statement can be made to fit the data, so long as one makes the requisite 'compensatory adjustments'. Popper drew attention to these limitations in The Logic of Scientific Discovery in response to criticism from Pierre Duhem. W. V. Quine expounded this argument in detail, calling it confirmation holism. To logically falsify a universal, one must find a true falsifying singular statement. But Popper pointed out that it is always possible to change the universal statement or the existential statement so that falsification does not occur. On hearing that a black swan has been observed in Australia, one might introduce the ad hoc hypothesis, 'all swans are white except those found in Australia'; or one might adopt another, more cynical view about some observers, 'Australian bird watchers are incompetent'.

Thus, naïve falsification ought to, but does not, supply a way of handling competing hypotheses for many subject controversies (for instance conspiracy theories and urban legends). People arguing that there is no support for such an observation may argue that there is nothing to see, that all is normal, or that the differences or appearances are too small to be statistically significant. On the other side are those who concede that an observation has occurred and that a universal statement has been falsified as a consequence. Therefore, naïve falsification does not enable scientists, who rely on objective criteria, to present a definitive falsification of universal statements.

Falsificationism

Naïve falsificationism is an unsuccessful attempt to prescribe a rationally unavoidable method for science. Sophisticated methodological falsification, on the other hand, is a prescription of a way in which scientists ought to behave as a matter of choice. The object of this is to arrive at an evolutionary process whereby theories become less bad.

Naïve falsification considers scientific statements individually. Scientific theories are formed from groups of these sorts of statements, and it is these groups that must be accepted or rejected by scientists. Scientific theories can always be defended by the addition of ad hoc hypotheses. As Popper put it, a decision is required on the part of the scientist to accept or reject the statements that go to make up a theory or that might falsify it. At some point, the weight of the ad hoc hypotheses and disregarded falsifying observations will become so great that it becomes unreasonable to support the base theory any longer, and a decision will be made to reject it.

In place of naïve falsification, Popper envisioned science as evolving by the successive rejection of falsified theories, rather than falsified statements. Falsified theories are to be replaced by theories that can account for the phenomena that falsified the prior theory, that is, with greater explanatory power. For example, Aristotelian mechanics explained observations of everyday situations, but were falsified by Galileo's experiments,^{[citation needed]} and were replaced by Newtonian mechanics, which accounted for the phenomena noted by Galileo (and others). Newtonian mechanics' reach included the observed motion of the planets and the mechanics of gases. The Youngian wave theory of light (i.e., waves carried by the luminiferous aether) replaced Newton's (and many of the Classical Greeks') particles of light but in turn was falsified by the Michelson-Morley experiment and was superseded by Maxwell's electrodynamics and Einstein's special relativity, which did account for the newly observed phenomena. Furthermore, Newtonian mechanics applied to the atomic scale was replaced with quantum mechanics, when the old theory could not provide an answer to the ultraviolet catastrophe, the Gibbs paradox, or how electron orbits could exist without the particles radiating away their energy and spiraling towards the centre. Thus the new theory had to posit the existence of unintuitive concepts such as energy levels, quanta and Heisenberg's uncertainty principle.

At each stage, experimental observation made a theory untenable (i.e., falsified it) and a new theory was found that had greater explanatory power (i.e., could account for the previously unexplained phenomena), and as a result, provided greater opportunity for its own falsification.

The criterion of demarcation

Popper uses falsification as a criterion of demarcation to draw a sharp line between those theories that are scientific and those that are unscientific. It is useful to know if a statement or theory is falsifiable, if for no other reason than that it provides us with an understanding of the ways in which one might assess the theory. One might at the least be saved from attempting to falsify a non-falsifiable theory, or come to see an unfalsifiable theory as unsupportable.

Popper claimed that, if a theory is falsifiable, then it is scientific.

The Popperian criterion excludes from the domain of science not unfalsifiable statements but only whole theories that contain no falsifiable statements; thus it leaves us with the Duhemian problem of what constitutes a 'whole theory' as well as the problem of what makes a statement 'meaningful'. Popper's own falsificationism, thus, is not only an alternative to verificationism, it is also an acknowledgement of the conceptual distinction that previous theories had ignored.

Verificationism

Main article: Verificationist

See also: Abductive reasoning

In the philosophy of science, verificationism (also known as the verifiability theory of meaning) holds that a statement must, in principle, be empirically verifiable in order that it be both meaningful and scientific. This was an essential feature of the logical positivism of the so-called Vienna Circle that included such philosophers as Moritz Schlick, Rudolf Carnap, Otto Neurath, the Berlin philosopher Hans Reichenbach, and the logical empiricism of A.J. Ayer.

Popper noticed that the philosophers of the Vienna Circle had mixed two different problems, that of meaning and that of demarcation, and had proposed in verificationism a single solution to both. In opposition to this view, Popper emphasized that there are meaningful theories that are not scientific, and that, accordingly, a criterion of meaningfulness does not coincide with a criterion of demarcation.

Thus, Popper urged that verifiability be replaced with falsifiability as the criterion of demarcation. On the other hand, he strictly opposed the view that non-falsifiable statements are meaningless or otherwise inherently bad, and noted that falsificationism does not imply it.

Use in courts of law

Judge William Overton used falsifiability in the McLean v. Arkansas ruling in 1982 as one of the criteria to determine that "creation science" was not scientific and should not be taught in Arkansas public schools as such (it can be taught as religion). In his conclusion related to this criterion Judge Overton stated that "[w]hile anybody is free to approach a scientific inquiry in any fashion they choose, they cannot properly describe the methodology as scientific, if they start with the conclusion and refuse to change it regardless of the evidence developed during the course of the investigation."

United States law also enshrined falsifiability as part of the Daubert Standard set by the United States Supreme Court for whether scientific evidence is admissible in a jury trial.

Criticisms

Contemporary philosophers

Adherents of Popper speak with disrespect of "professional philosophy", for example W. W. Bartley:

Sir Karl Popper is not really a participant in the contemporary professional philosophical dialogue; quite the contrary, he has ruined that dialogue. If he is on the right track, then the majority of professional philosophers the world over have wasted or are wasting their intellectual careers. The gulf between Popper's way of doing philosophy and that of the bulk of contemporary professional philosophers is as great as that between astronomy and astrology.

Rafe Champion:

Popper's ideas have failed to convince the majority of professional philosophers because his theory of conjectural knowledge does not even pretend to provide positively justified foundations of belief. Nobody else does better, but they keep trying, like chemists still in search of the Philosopher's Stone or physicists trying to build perpetual motion machines.

and David Miller:

What distinguishes science from all other human endeavours is that the accounts of the world that our best, mature sciences deliver are strongly supported by evidence and this evidence gives us the strongest reason to believe them.' That anyway is what is said at the beginning of the advertisement for a recent conference on induction at a celebrated seat of learning in the UK. It shows how much critical rationalists still have to do to make known the message of Logik der Forschung concerning what empirical evidence is able to do and what it does.

Nevertheless, many contemporary philosophers of science and analytic philosophers are strongly critical of Popper's philosophy of science. Popper's mistrust of inductive reasoning has led to claims that he misrepresents scientific practice. Among the professional philosophers of science, the Popperian view has never been seriously preferred to probabilistic induction, which is the mainstream account of scientific reasoning.^{[citation needed]}

Kuhn and Lakatos

Whereas Popper was concerned in the main with the logic of science, Thomas Kuhn's influential book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions examined in detail the history of science. Kuhn argued that scientists work within a conceptual paradigm that strongly influences the way in which they see data. Scientists will go to great length to defend their paradigm against falsification, by the addition of ad hoc hypotheses to existing theories. Changing a 'paradigm' is difficult, as it requires an individual scientist to break with his or her peers and defend a heterodox theory.

Some falsificationists saw Kuhn's work as a vindication, since it provided historical evidence that science progressed by rejecting inadequate theories, and that it is the decision, on the part of the scientist, to accept or reject a theory that is the crucial element of falsificationism. Foremost amongst these was Imre Lakatos.

Lakatos attempted to explain Kuhn's work by arguing that science progresses by the falsification of research programs rather than the more specific universal statements of naïve falsification. In Lakatos' approach, a scientist works within a research program that corresponds roughly with Kuhn's 'paradigm'. Whereas Popper rejected the use of ad hoc hypotheses as unscientific, Lakatos accepted their place in the development of new theories.

Feyerabend

Paul Feyerabend examined the history of science with a more critical eye, and ultimately rejected any prescriptive methodology at all. He rejected Lakatos' argument for ad hoc hypothesis, arguing that science would not have progressed without making use of any and all available methods to support new theories. He rejected any reliance on a scientific method, along with any special authority for science that might derive from such a method. Rather, he claimed that if one is keen to have a universally valid methodological rule, epistemological anarchism or anything goes would be the only candidate. For Feyerabend, any special status that science might have derives from the social and physical value of the results of science rather than its method.

Sokal and Bricmont

In their book Fashionable Nonsense (published in the UK as Intellectual Impostures) the physicists Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont criticized falsifiability on the grounds that it does not accurately describe the way science really works. They argue that theories are used because of their successes, not because of the failures of other theories. Their discussion of Popper, falsifiability and the philosophy of science comes in a chapter entitled "Intermezzo," which contains an attempt to make clear their own views of what constitutes truth, in contrast with the extreme epistemological relativism of postmodernism.

Sokal and Bricmont write, "When a theory successfully withstands an attempt at falsification, a scientist will, quite naturally, consider the theory to be partially confirmed and will accord it a greater likelihood or a higher subjective probability. ... But Popper will have none of this: throughout his life he was a stubborn opponent of any idea of 'confirmation' of a theory, or even of its 'probability'. ... [but] the history of science teaches us that scientific theories come to be accepted above all because of their successes." (Sokal and Bricmont 1997, 62f)

They further argue that falsifiability cannot distinguish between astrology and astronomy, as both make technical predictions that are sometimes incorrect.

David Miller, a contemporary philosopher of critical rationalism, has attempted to defend Popper against these claims. Miller argues that astrology does not lay itself open to falsification, while astronomy does, and this is the litmus test for science.

Examples

Claims about verifiability and falsifiability have been used to criticize various controversial views. Examining these examples shows the usefulness of falsifiability by showing us where to look when attempting to criticise a theory.

Economics

Karl Popper argued that Marxism shifted from falsifiable to unfalsifiable.

Some economists, such as those of the Austrian School, believe that macroeconomics is empirically unfalsifiable and that thus the only appropriate means to understand economic events is by logically studying the intentions of individual economic decision-makers, based on certain fundamental truths. Prominent figures within the Austrian School of economics Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek were associates of Karl Popper's, with whom they co-founded the Mont Pelerin Society.

Evolution

Main article: Objections to evolution: Unfalsifiability

Numerous examples of potential (indirect) ways to falsify common descent have been proposed by its proponents. J.B.S. Haldane, when asked what hypothetical evidence could disprove evolution, replied "fossil rabbits in the Precambrian era". Richard Dawkins adds that any other modern animal, such as a hippo, would suffice.

Karl Popper at first spoke against the testability of natural selection but later recanted, "I have changed my mind about the testability and logical status of the theory of natural selection, and I am glad to have the opportunity to make a recantation."

Historicism

Theories of history or politics that allegedly predict future events have a logical form that renders them neither falsifiable nor verifiable. They claim that for every historically significant event, there exists an historical or economic law that determines the way in which events proceeded. Failure to identify the law does not mean that it does not exist, yet an event that satisfies the law does not prove the general case. Evaluation of such claims is at best difficult. On this basis, Popper "fundamentally criticized historicism in the sense of any preordained prediction of history", and argued that neither Marxism nor psychoanalysis was science, although both made such claims. Again, this does not mean that any of these types of theories is necessarily incorrect. Popper considered falsifiability a test of whether theories are scientific, not of whether propositions that they contain or support are true.

Mathematics

Many philosophers believe that mathematics is not experimentally falsifiable, and thus not a science according to the definition of Karl Popper. However, in the 1930s Gödel's incompleteness theorems proved that there does not exist a set of axioms for mathematics which is both complete and consistent. Karl Popper concluded that "most mathematical theories are, like those of physics and biology, hypothetico-deductive: pure mathematics therefore turns out to be much closer to the natural sciences whose hypotheses are conjectures, than it seemed even recently." Other thinkers, notably Imre Lakatos, have applied a version of falsificationism to mathematics itself.

Like all formal sciences, mathematics is not concerned with the validity of theories based on observations in the empirical world, but rather, mathematics is occupied with the theoretical, abstract study of such topics as quantity, structure, space and change. Methods of the mathematical sciences are, however, applied in constructing and testing scientific models dealing with observable reality. Albert Einstein wrote, "One reason why mathematics enjoys special esteem, above all other sciences, is that its laws are absolutely certain and indisputable, while those of other sciences are to some extent debatable and in constant danger of being overthrown by newly discovered facts.”

See also: Mathematical proof, Scientific method and mathematics, Mathematics as science, and Popper's "two senses" theory

Quotations

• Albert Einstein is reported to have said: No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong. (paraphrased)
• The criterion of the scientific status of a theory is its falsifiability, or refutability, or testability. — Karl Popper, (Popper, CR, 36)

See also

• Closed circle
• Cognitive bias
• Contingency
• Defeasible reasoning
• Demarcation problem
• Duhem–Quine thesis
• Fallibilism
• Fallacy (informal logic and rhetoric)
• False (logic)
• Hypothetico-deductive model
• Inquiry
• Logical positivism
• Metaphysical solipsism
• Methodological solipsism
• Not even wrong
• Occam's razor
• Philosophy of mathematics
• Philosophy of science
• Pragmatic maxim
• Precambrian rabbit
• Predictive power
• Reproducibility
• Scientific method
• Superseded scientific theory
• Tautology
• Testability
• Theory-ladenness

Notes

References

• Angeles, Peter A. (1992), Harper Collins Dictionary of Philosophy, 2nd edition, Harper Perennial, New York, NY. ISBN 0-06-461026-8.
• Feyerabend, Paul K., Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge, Humanities Press, London, UK, 1975. Reprinted, Verso, London, UK, 1978.
• Kuhn, Thomas S., The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, 1962. 2nd edition 1970. 3rd edition 1996.
• Lakatos, Imre. (1970), "Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes," in Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, vol. 4. Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave (eds.), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
• Lakatos, Imre (1978), The methodology of scientific research programmes: Philosophical papers, volume I. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-28031 -1.
• Peirce, C.S., "Lectures on Pragmatism", Cambridge, MA, March 26 – May 17, 1903. Reprinted in part, Collected Papers, CP 5.14–212. Published in full with editor's introduction and commentary, Patricia Ann Turisi (ed.), Pragmatism as a Principle and Method of Right Thinking: The 1903 Harvard "Lectures on Pragmatism", State University of New York Press, Albany, NY, 1997. Reprinted, pp. 133–241, Peirce Edition Project (eds.), The Essential Peirce, Selected Philosophical Writings, Volume 2 (1893–1913), Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN, 1998.
• Popper, Karl, The Logic of Scientific Discovery, Basic Books, New York, NY, 1959.
• Popper, Karl, Conjectures and Refutations, Routledge, London, 1963.
• Runes, Dagobert D. (ed.), Dictionary of Philosophy, Littlefield, Adams, and Company, Totowa, NJ, 1962.
• Sokal, Alan, and Bricmont, Jean, Fashionable Nonsense, Picador, New York, NY, 1998.
• Theobald, D.L. (2006). 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: The Scientific Case for Common Descent. The Talk.Origins Archive. Version 2.87.
• Wood, Ledger (1962), "Solipsism", p. 295 in Runes (ed.), Dictionary of Philosophy, Littlefield, Adams, and Company, Totowa, NJ.

External links

• Problems with Falsificationism at The Galilean Library

English Journal

• [Health, hospitality sector and tobacco industry].

• Abella Pons F, Córdoba Garcia R, Suárez Bonel MP.Author information Unidad de Tabaquismo, Hospital de Santa María, Lleida, España.AbstractTo present the strategies used by the tobacco industry to meet government regulatory measures of its products. To demonstrate the relationship between tobacco industry and the hospitality sector. Note that the arguments and strategies used routinely by the hospitality industry have been previously provided by the tobacco industry. Location of key documents by meta-search, links to declassified documents, specific websites of the tobacco and hospitality industry, news sources and published articles in health journals. This review reveals the close relationship between tobacco industry and hospitality sector. It highlights the strategies carried out by the tobacco industry, including strategic hoarding of information, public relations, lobbying, consultation program, smoker defence groups, building partnerships, intimidation and patronage. The arguments and strategies used by the hospitality industry to match point by point that used by the tobacco industry. These arguments are refutable from the point of view of public health as it is scientifically proven that totally smoke-free environments are the only way to protect non-smokers from tobacco smoke exposure and its harmful effects on health.
• Atencion primaria / Sociedad Española de Medicina de Familia y Comunitaria.Aten Primaria.2012 Nov;44(11):676-81. doi: 10.1016/j.aprim.2011.09.014. Epub 2012 Jan 17.
• To present the strategies used by the tobacco industry to meet government regulatory measures of its products. To demonstrate the relationship between tobacco industry and the hospitality sector. Note that the arguments and strategies used routinely by the hospitality industry have been previously p
• PMID 22257526

• Positive Tolman length in a lattice gas with three-body interactions.

• Tröster A, Binder K.Author information Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz, Staudingerweg 7, D-55099 Mainz, Germany.AbstractWe present a new method to determine the curvature dependence of the interface tension between coexisting phases in a finite volume from free energies obtained by Monte Carlo simulations. For the example of a lattice gas on a 3D fcc lattice with nearest neighbor three-body interactions, we demonstrate how to calculate the equimolar radius R(e) as well as the radius R(s) of the surface of tension and thus the Tolman length δ(R(s))=R(e)-R(s). Within the physically relevant range of radii, δ(R(s)) shows a pronounced R(s) dependence, such that the simple Tolman parametrization for the interface tension is refutable. For the present model, extrapolation of δ(R(s)) to R(s)→∞ by various methods clearly indicates a positive limiting value.
• Physical review letters.Phys Rev Lett.2011 Dec 23;107(26):265701. Epub 2011 Dec 20.
• We present a new method to determine the curvature dependence of the interface tension between coexisting phases in a finite volume from free energies obtained by Monte Carlo simulations. For the example of a lattice gas on a 3D fcc lattice with nearest neighbor three-body interactions, we demonstra
• PMID 22243167

• A reformulation of the social brain theory for schizophrenia: the case for out-group intolerance.

• Abed RT, Abbas MJ.Author information Mental Health Unit, Rotherham General Hospital, Rotherham, UK. abedrt@btinternet.comAbstractThis article proposes a reformulation of the social brain theory of schizophrenia. Contrary to those who consider schizophrenia to be an inherently human condition, we suggest that it is a relatively recent phenomenon, and that the vulnerability to it remained hidden among our hunter-gatherer ancestors. Hence, we contend that schizophrenia is the result of a mismatch between the post-Neolithic human social environment and the design of the social brain. We review the evidence from human evolutionary history of the importance of the distinction between ingroup and out-group membership that lies at the heart of intergroup conflict, violence, and xenophobia. We then review the evidence for the disparities in schizophrenia incidence around the world and for the higher risk of this condition among immigrants and city dwellers. Our hypothesis explains a range of epidemiological findings on schizophrenia related to the risk of migration and urbanization, the improved prognosis in underdeveloped countries, and variations in the prevalence of the disorder. However, although this hypothesis may identify the ultimate causation of schizophrenia, it does not specify the proximate mechanisms that lead to it. We conclude with a number of testable and refutable predictions for future research.
• Perspectives in biology and medicine.Perspect Biol Med.2011 Spring;54(2):132-51. doi: 10.1353/pbm.2011.0020.
• This article proposes a reformulation of the social brain theory of schizophrenia. Contrary to those who consider schizophrenia to be an inherently human condition, we suggest that it is a relatively recent phenomenon, and that the vulnerability to it remained hidden among our hunter-gatherer ancest
• PMID 21532129

Japanese Journal

• Refutability and Reliability for Inductive Inference of Recursive Real-Valued Functions

• Hirowatari Eiju,Hirata Kouichi,Miyahara Tetsuhiro,Arikawa Setsuo
• Information and Media Technologies 1(1), 33-44, 2006
• … First we introduce the new criteria RealRefEx for refutable inference and RealRelEx for reliable inference. …
• NAID 130000058390

• Refutability and Reliability for Inductive Inference of Recursive Real-Valued Functions

• Hirowatari Eiju,Hirata Kouichi,Miyahara Tetsuhiro [他],ARIKAWA SETSUO
• 情報処理学会論文誌. 数理モデル化と応用 46(SIG_2(TOM_11)), 1-11, 2005-01-15
• … First we introduce the new criteria REALREFEX for refutable inference and REALRELEX for reliable inference. …
• NAID 110002768724

• Refutability and Reliability for Inductive Inference of Recursive Real-Valued Functions

• Hirowatari Eiju,Hirata Kouichi,Miyahara Tetsuhiro,Arikawa Setsuo
• IPSJ Digital Courier 1, 141-152, 2005
• … First we introduce the new criteria RealRefEx for refutable inference and RealRelEx for reliable inference. …
• NAID 130000022397

Related Links

• refutableの意味 - 英和辞書 - 英語辞書 - goo辞書

refutableとは。意味や和訳。[形]反駁(はんばく)できる；反証の余地のある.re・fù・ta・bíl・i・ty[名] re・fu・ta・bly[副] - goo英和辞書は14万項目以上を収録し、発音、音声、慣用句、例文が分かる英和辞書です。

• Refutable | Define Refutable at Dictionary.com

British Dictionary definitions for refutable Expand refute / rɪˈfjuːt / verb 1. (transitive) to prove (a statement, theory, charge, etc) of (a person) to be false or incorrect; disprove 2. to deny (a claim, charge, allegation, etc) refutable ( ə l; ...

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