Bronchial Asthma and Atopy: A Concorded Hypothesis by Alex Dunedin

This is a thesis examining bronchial asthma and allergic conditions (Type 1 Hypersensitivity) postulating them as a result of a deficiency of the enzyme lipoprotein lipase and glucuronidation which functions in phase II detoxification processes. Structured and laid out as an example of a concorded hypothesis for the purposes of examining methodologies in the the sciences and knowledge production, the document is designed to provoke and facilitate discussion on the formation of hypotheses.
 

Bronchial asthma

This is a complete manuscript written and developed over many years which represents a thorough study of bronchial asthma and the atopic conditions.  It draws together lines of investigation such that a pattern is suggested in the biomedical events and is interpreted in a particular way so as to suggest these allergic conditions as a deficiency of a particular enzyme and detoxification medium.

 
As with all ideas, they become hypotheses when they are presented in a structured way that attempts to provide a clear rational for what is taking place.  The traditions of scientific method involve citing where each piece of information has been drawn from, and providing a bibliography of references so that readers can go back to the original texts to explore the original context and meaning.
 

The overall project which I am engaging in extends to thinking about how we present knowledge in a coherent fashion so that we can more readily analyse the contentions which are laid out before us.  In the document you find here you will find a concorded hypothesis – that is, a hypothesis which incorporates into same space, the original text found in each of the references accompanied by the meaning which I have drawn from it.

 
The document is typeset as a printed document with contents page and index to aid navigation and internal cross referencing of facts.  It illustrates a consideration of the aesthetic components of knowledge, in as much as, an attempt has been made to visually lay out the many pieces of information so as to aid in the understanding of the interrelationship of each statement.  Each chapter starts with a series of statements, which through the chapter are dealt with one by one.  Each statement then draws on a specific original reference, showing where it is accessible, as well as the original text.  At the end of each reference you will find a series of statements which have been drawn from the original text with numbered indications of where in the text each has been drawn from.
 
 

Bronchial Asthma thesis by Alex Dunediin
Click Here To Download

 

 

The intention here is to borrow from a scholarly tradition of the church.  In a concordance we will commonly find an original text accompanied by one or several transliterations – for example from one language into another – as well as analytic notes on how one might interpret the texts authentically to original context.

 
This exercise is an important examination of the treatment of language which preserves meaning past its reconstitution.  This should aid the reader in weighing up the ability of the writer to edify without distorting the facts.  It is also a matter of convenience on the readers end, saving them the legwork of finding the original texts so that they can compare them.
 

As for the hypothesis in medicine, this is up for grabs.  I propose that a robust hypothesis should be overwhelmingly corroborated by independently produced sources; the facts – when all laid out – should agree with each other.  In the formation of ideas from literature review there is a whole line of work and thinking which can be done before we move to physically testing a hypothesis.  I argue that in this dawning information age, deeper understandings of how we can formulate clear, testible, and practically useful ideas are yet to emerge.  This is an exploration of the techniques we can use to formulate hypotheses from literature.

 
In developing a series of writings on the philosophy of knowledge and science, I have been trying to address key issues and methods for arriving at an understanding of “how we know what we think we know”.  The accompanying science primers are basic liner notes on central notions we find in developing scientific knowledge.  Popularly, scientific knowledge was articulated as testible (falsifiable) by Karl Popper, and in science we look for testible ideas and challenge them so that we can – over time – arrive at an understanding of where an idea sits on a scale of ‘increasingly reliable knowledge’.
 

The work presented here is part of the public domain and is thus belongs to everyone.