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The Internet Classics Archive | The Republic by Plato
The Republic by Plato, part of the Internet Classics Archive
classics.mit.edu
Moreover, I said, you must not wonder that those who attain to this beatific vision are unwilling to descend to human affairs; for their souls are ever
hastening into the upper world where they desire to dwell; which desire of theirs is very natural, if our allegory may be trusted.
Yes, very natural.
And is there anything surprising in one who passes from divine contemplations to the evil state of man, misbehaving himself in a ridiculous manner; if, while
his eyes are blinking and before he has become accustomed to the surrounding darkness, he is compelled to fight in courts of law, or in other places, about the
images or the shadows of images of justice, and is endeavouring to meet the conceptions of those who have never yet seen absolute justice?
Here is a coherent, concise post on Scientometrics. I have somewhat over forty hours experience here. My original post was too sprawling and
incoherent to be useful for most people; however, it was a good starting point for this post.
Scientometrics - Wikipedia
Scientometrics is the field of study which concerns itself with measuring and analysing scientific literature.
What does it look like to use these systems? A lot like using a potency system in pharmacology. So much so that first one ought be familiar
with how potency systems work; ergo, the following aside.
Pharmacology Aside
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Potency (pharmacology) - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
In the field of pharmacology, potency is a measure of drug activity expressed in terms of the amount required to produce an effect of given intensity.[1] A
highly potent drug (e.g., fentanyl, alprazolam, risperidone) evokes a given response at low concentrations, while a drug of lower potency (meperidine,
diazepam, ziprasidone) evokes the same response only at higher concentrations. Higher potency does not necessarily mean more side effects.
Erowid -- a professional folk community -- maintains one potency system as a set of intensity to dose-range charts for various pharmacological substances. This
can be seen as a professional folk system: Useful for a rule of thumb; on the threshold of scientific; prone to breaking down into fuzz -- particularly "around
the edges." (Another example of a similar sort of thing is the Body Mass Index, or BMI.) Consider the following examples.
Smoked/Vaporized DMT Dosages
Threshold 2 - 5 mg
Light 10 - 20 mg
Common 20 - 40 mg
Strong 40 - 60 mg
Smoked/Vaporized 5-MeO-DMT Dosages
Threshold 1 - 2 mg
Light 2 - 5 mg
Common 5 - 10 mg
Strong 10 - 20 mg
The effect (intensity) and corresponding dose (range) for two smoked tryptamines. It is clear that 5-MeO-DMT is more potent than DMT: threshold effects start
at 1 mg, half the 2 mg dose needed for DMT. One could therefore say that 5-MeO-DMT is twice as potent as DMT; however, this is regarding threshold effect only.
There is much nuance. For example, 40 mg of DMT can produce strong effects, but only 10 mg of 5-MeO-DMT is required; ergo, 5-MeO-DMT has four times the potency
of DMT in the context of reaching the stronger intensities. Oftentimes, a linear dose-response curve is assumed; however, this is not actually a safe assumption
to make.
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Dose–response relationship - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
The concept of linear dose–response relationship, thresholds, and all-or-nothing responses may not apply to non-linear situations. A threshold model or linear
no-threshold model may be more appropriate, depending on the circumstances. A recent critique of these models as they apply to endocrine disruptors argues for
a substantial revision of testing and toxicological models at low doses because of observed non-monotonicity, i.e. U-shaped dose/response curves.[10]
Professional folk systems like this are extremely useful; however, they have many caveats that must be kept in mind. This can be very important -- especially
in edge cases. This was illustrated by the previous example of two drugs with incongruent dose-response curves. Knowing that half as much 5-MeO-DMT -- 1 mg --
is needed to produce a threshold effect -- versus DMT's 2 mg -- would seemingly imply that one ought to take 20 mg of 5-MeO-DMT to reach the threshold of strong
effects. However, 20 mg of 5-MeO-DMT is the strongest suggested dose, and when discussing strong intensity effects, 5-MeO-DMT is actually four times as potent,
instead of simply twice as potent.
Fentanyl is a synthetic (man-made) opioid 50 times more potent than heroin and 100 times more potent than morphine.
It conveys that one needs 50 times less fentanyl than heroin, and 100 times less than morphine, for comparable effect. But this can only really be considered a
rule of thumb -- unless we know their dose-response curves have equivalent slopes, for otherwise they haven't a fixed potency difference between them; rather,
only for a given intensity of effect. Much as 5-MeO-DMT can be seen as either twice as potent or four times as potent as DMT. Things are fuzzy in the world of
professional folk systems; therefore, they are typically not used in the most rigorous scientific contexts, even as they oftentimes are in more pragmatic and
applied areas, and unambiguously are of high value.
Potency - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
The IUPHAR has stated that 'potency' is "an imprecise term that should always be further defined"[1], for instance as EC 50, IC 50, ED 50, LD 50 and so on.
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EC50 - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
It is commonly used as a measure of a drug's potency, and the use of EC50 is preferred over that of 'potency', which has been criticised for its vagueness.[2]
The primary improvement of this is replacing more subjective things like "threshold," "light," "common," and "strong" with an objective measure: EC50, which is
the concentration of a drug that attains 50% of its maximum efficacy, or ability to produce effect.
Efficacy vs. Potency - Pharmacology - Medbullets Step 1
step1.medbullets.com
Efficacy
maximum effect that a drug can produce regardless of dose
EC50 is the concentration or dose of drug that causes 50% of maximum effect
In specific, make use of JCR Impact Factors, SJR Indicators, and Google Scholar H-indices. Also, the other metrics provided by
https://scimagojr.com are valuable in the assessment of academic journals. Google Scholar H-indices are also computed on individual researchers
and give you some insight into their status in their fields. One exception is mathematics related papers, which can be ranked by these systems as
well; however, the Erdős numbers of the authors is a better indicator for mathematics papers -- especially papers regarding discrete mathematics,
graph theory, number theory, mathematical analysis, approximation theory, set theory, and probability theory.
JCR Impact Factors (R): https://clarivate.com/webofsciencegroup/solutions/journal-citation-reports/
SJR Indicators: https://www.scimagojr.com
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com
Things are more complex than this, but recursion from this basis will allow for building a more powerful system. To address apparent dichotomies in the
scientific literature, we take a sufficient sample of the literature and weight it in accordance with these scientometric systems. The position having the
most scientometric support for it is essentially the scientifically supported position; however, there are oftentimes competing positions in science, and we
should realize that what is the most supported today may not be tomorrow. However, as the disparity between the dichotomous positions and their academic
merit as derived by this system increases, the one having the most merit currently in support of it is increasingly likely to be not only the scientifically
considered as correct position, but the position that is reflective of the truth of actual reality.