Carusi, A. (2016) In Silico medicine: Social, Technological and Symbolic Mediation. Humana-Mente Journal of Philosophical Studies, 30. pp. 67-86.
Abstract
In silico medicine is still forging a road for itself in the current biomedical landscape. Discursively and rhetorically, it is using a three-way positioning, first, deploying discourses of personalised medicine, second, extending the 3Rs from animal to clinical research, and third, aligning its methods with experimental methods. The discursive and rhetorical positioning in promotions and statements of the programme gives us insight into the sociability of the scientific labour of advancing the programme. Its progress depends on complex social, institutional and technological conditions which are not external to its epistemology, but intricately interwoven with it. This article sets out to show that this is the case through an analysis of the process of computational modelling that is at the core of its epistemology. In this paper I show that the very notion of ‘model’ needs to be re-thought for in silico medicine (as indeed, for most forms of computational modelling), and propose a replacement, in the form of the ‘Model-Simulation-Experiment-System’ or MSE-system, which is simultaneously an epistemological, social and technological system. I argue that the MSE-system is radically mediated by social relations, technologies and symbolic systems. We need now to understand how such mediations operate effectively in the construction of robust MSE-systems. keywords: system medicine, philosophy of modeling and simulation, technological mediation.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2016 The Author(s) All articles and reviews published by Humana.Mente are free available online immediately from the date of publication. There are no author(s) charges prior to publication, and no charges for any reader to read and download articles and reviews. This open access system is free to all at any time and in perpetuity. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health (Sheffield) > Department of Infection and Immunity (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 01 Aug 2016 09:39 |
Last Modified: | 26 Oct 2016 03:13 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Associazione Culturale Humana.Mente |
Refereed: | Yes |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:102890 |