Reports of investigations using quantitative methods in the clinical setting: a call for papers.

The understanding of the reasons for human suffering and the identification of effective means to mitigate it had two major developments in the history of civilization. Aristotle, Hippocrates and other Greek philosophers were the leaders of the first revolution, when they started to explain natural phenomena through the use of logic and observation, leaving aside metaphysical grounds, and creating the philosophical basis of the scientific method. After a long period of recrudescence of religious explanations for the facts of life, the Renascence experienced the second major revolution in the development of the scientific method. Rather than returning to the Greek philosophers, the thinkers of this new era started to challenge them. Descartes, Bacon and others proposed that the use of quantitative methods could better explain natural phenomena than the scholastic interpretation of reality. At the beginning of the 16th century, the natural philosophy of Aristotles was still taught in Jesuit and other colleges, saying, for example, that things are divided into those which could move by an intrinsic power and into those which would depend on an extrinsic power. Surprisingly, stones were classified as a special case of the first condition, since they had a dormant intrinsic power, which would need activation such as elevation from the ground. The theory of gravity proposed by Newton is certainly a better explanation for the fall of stones, and may be recognized as a major example of the transformation of the scientific method that occurred at that time. In the field of biology and medicine, the move from qualitative to quantitative explanations for natural phenomena led to the development of physiology, pathology, pharmacology and other sciences, which modified profoundly the understanding of the causes, consequences, and methods of prevention and treatment of diseases. On the clinical scene, however, the qualitative method for Correspondence F.D. Fuchs Serviço de Cardiologia Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre Rua Ramiro Barcelos, 2350 90035-003 Porto Alegre, RS Brasil Fax: +55-51-316-8420 E-mail: [email protected]