Emma•ism

Emma Søndergaard Jensen

A 2025 graduate of the London School of Economic’s MSc in Philosophy and Public Policy program, 2024 Thouron Award winner, and 2024 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s (BA) philosophy department shares her love of philosophy through podcasts. Emma-ism is presented by Emma Søndergaard Jensen, author of “How to Excel in Undergraduate Philosophy.” Her podcast is for other seekers of knowledge to understand texts more deeply, learn about new philosophers, and discover a new point of view. This will be done through text analyses, modern-day implication discussions, interviews, and lectures.

  1. Aug 16

    Going for Gold: Mechanistic Evidence Drives Epistemic & Pragmatic Progress in Rare Disease Research

    What should count as reliable evidence supporting medical inductions when traditional evidentiary hierarchies are epistemically inadequate? This dissertation argues that the evidentiary status of mechanisms, broadly understood as reasoning based on understanding of causal biomedical systems, in rare disease medical research should be raised. This is an epistemological claim about evidence hierarchies in medicine, and its defense will be grounded in philosophy of science analysis (specifically via theories of classification in philosophy of medicine, the Cartwrightian account of causation, and the nature of scientific induction) of case studies. Current evidence-based medicine hierarchies prioritize evidence generation that propounds biostatistical inductions based on historical naturalist reference class foundations. Generating biostatistical inductions is not an epistemically adequate method of evidence generation for rare disease because of epistemic limitations surrounding the ability to generate and the realistic epistemic power of developing a statistical induction in rare disease. The refinement of reliable research methodology and accurate inductions (epistemological progress) and therapeutic breakthroughs (pragmatic progress) in rare disease medicine depend on the contribution of mechanistic reasoning to evidence-based decisions rather than on statistically-enabled evidence generation.

    Going for Gold: Mechanistic Evidence Drives Epistemic & Pragmatic Progress in Rare Disease Research

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About

A 2025 graduate of the London School of Economic’s MSc in Philosophy and Public Policy program, 2024 Thouron Award winner, and 2024 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s (BA) philosophy department shares her love of philosophy through podcasts. Emma-ism is presented by Emma Søndergaard Jensen, author of “How to Excel in Undergraduate Philosophy.” Her podcast is for other seekers of knowledge to understand texts more deeply, learn about new philosophers, and discover a new point of view. This will be done through text analyses, modern-day implication discussions, interviews, and lectures.