Concept tag
#natural-kinds
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Species are drawn, not discovered: biology has already chosen nominalism
I dive in the kelp forests along the Chilean coast. In the years I have been diving there, the species boundaries in some kelp groups have been argued over and redrawn on the basis of genetic data, and biologists still disagree about…
Started by Ignacio Cárcamo5 replies -
Does a diagnosis name a real condition, or a useful bundle of symptoms?
I work as an interpreter at a hospital in Addis Ababa. Some diagnoses I translate every day feel like discoveries: a particular infection, caused by a particular organism, with a test that finds it. Others feel more like agreements. "Metabolic syndrome" is…
Started by Tsion Bekele5 replies -
Is “depression” one condition or several? A reader’s doubts
One question has followed me through years of my own analysis and of reading psychiatry: when two people receive the same diagnosis of major depression, do they have the same thing? Consider how the diagnosis works. A person needs five of nine…
Started by Martín Iriarte4 replies