In our opinion

How the Opinion of Others Affects Our Valuation of Objects

The opinions of others can easily affect how much we value things. We investigated what happens in our brain when we agree with others about the value of an object and whether or not there is evidence, at the neural level, for social conformity through which we change object valuation. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging we independently modeled (1) learning reviewer opinions about a pi...

Opinion Opinion Opinion

A common notion of vision, consistent with this excerpt from the first paragraph of David Marr’s seminal book [1], is gained by considering the predicament of a person with a searchlight placed in a pitch-dark room full of unfamiliar furniture. One would hope that, by swinging the beam around, the observer will be able to recognize the objects present in the room (a cat here, an aquarium there,...

Thanks to Our Peer-Reviewers in 2016

Public opinion is our supreme court: D W Cathell MD, The Physician Himself.

D aniel Webster Cathell MD (1839–1925) began writing his book ‘‘The Physician Himself’’ in 1882 to help new physicians in America prosper. His book was so popular that it was in its tenth edition in 1892, last revised in 1922 and republished in 1931. In those days, before the reforms in American medical education driven by the Flexner report of 1910, it was easy to become a physician—many men d...

Opinion: Conducting science in the public eye

Doing science is usually hidden behinds the wall of the lab and universities, and thus immune from immediate public scrutiny. The current COVID-19 pandemic has dragged the scientific process and its fruits in the public eye. In this short piece, I attempt to discuss the effect of conducting science in the public eye on the public’s perception of science and scientists.