Week 2: Seminar Questions on Claude Bernard,

Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine

Work in groups of 4-5. In addition to working on the questions below, each group develop a discussion question to present to the full seminar.

Q1 At the beginning of the reading for today, Bernard articulates a position that he subsequently criticizes. (pp. 59-60, 61) As a group, articulate and expand this position in the most charitable terms possible. Are you inclined to agree or disagree?

Q2 Bernard claims that both the external and internal environments must be considered in “higher” animals? (p. 63) How are these environments the same and different? What is the significance of this distinction in Bernard’s critique of vitalism?

Q3 What does Bernard mean by the statement: “[t]he words, life, death, health, disease, have no objective reality?” (p. 67) Do you agree with this position?

Q4 “Negation of this proposition would be nothing less than the negation of science itself.” (p. 68) What is the proposition? Do you agree with Bernard’s claim as it applies to physiology? Do you agree with Bernard’s claim as it applies to sciences in general?

Q5 Does Bernard think that living things can be fully explained in terms of their chemical and physical properties? Bernard repeatedly criticizes vitalism. However, Bernard seems to adopt a vitalist position in certain passages (e.g., p. 69, pp. 92-94). How would you describe Bernard’s position in relation to the vitalist position that he criticizes? Does he have a coherent, consistent position?

Q6 In discussing what scientists should study, Bernard distinguishes between the “how of things” and the “why of things.” (p. 80) What is the point of this distinction? Do you agree or disagree with his conclusion?

Q7 Compare the views of Bernard (p. 92) and Sacks (p. 20) on generalization and particulars in scientific knowledge. (Sacks: “By a sort of comic and awful analogy, our current cognitive neurology and psychology resemble nothing so much as poor Dr P.! We need the concrete and real, as he did; and we fail to see this, as he failed to see it. Our cognitive sciences are themselves suffering from an agnosia essentially similar to Dr. P’s. Dr. P. may therefore serve as a warning and parable—of what happens to a science which eschews the judgmental, the particular, the personal, and becomes entirely abstract and computational.”

Q8 What role, if any, does Bernard think that statistics should play in scientific understanding or medical practice? Do you agree or disagree with him? (pp. 136-140)

Q9 Consider Bernard’s argument about vivisection (pp. 99-105). What are the strongest points of his argument? What are the weakest points of his argument? For the purposes of using this topic for paper 1 due Friday, April 20, you could also consider the readings and discussion on the vivisection debate from the Friday April 13 workshop.

Q10 Based on what you know about medical education and practice today, has Bernard’s vision of “experimental medicine” come to pass?