GAMSAT Section II - Medicine, Science, Technology

Question 1

Shifts in Medical Paradigms

Answer 1

Eminence based to evidence based medicine

Question 2

Subjectivity of Science

Answer 2

Foucault - Are there any “apolitical facts”
Hermeneutics cycle - that one’s understanding of the text as a whole is established by reference to the individual parts and one’s understanding of each individual part by reference to the whole.

Question 3

Scientific Method

Answer 3

Assumptions for scientific method
o An objective reality shared by all rational observers
o Objective reality is governed by natural laws
o Laws can be discovered by means of systematic observation and experimentation

Question 4

Empiricism

Answer 4

knowledge is created by a process involving observation and that scientific theories are the result of generalizations from such observations.
Inductivism - a position that tries to explain the way general theories can be justified by the finite number of observations humans can make and hence the finite amount of empirical evidence available to confirm scientific theories.

Question 5

Descartes

Answer 5

Knowledge is created by the human intellect, not by observation

Question 6

Karl Popper

Answer 6

He claimed that theories are not generated by observation, but that observation is made in the light of theories and that the only way a theory can be affected by observation is when it comes in conflict with it
Popper proposed replacing verifiability with falsifiability as the landmark of scientific theories and replacing induction with falsification as the empirical method.

Question 7

Thomas Kuhn

Answer 7

He characterized normal science as the process of observation and “puzzle solving” which takes place within a paradigm, whereas revolutionary science occurs when one paradigm overtakes another in a paradigm shift

A paradigm shift occurs when a significant number of observational anomalies arise in the old paradigm and a new paradigm makes sense of them. That is, the choice of a new paradigm is based on observations, even though those observations are made against the background of the old paradigm. For Kuhn, acceptance or rejection of a paradigm is a social process as much as a logical process. Kuhn’s position, however, is not one of relativism

Question 8

Healthcare costs

Answer 8

Over 930 million people (12% world pop) spend at least 10% of their household budget to pay for healthcare