In Virtual Worlds, Benjamin Woolley examines the reality of virtual reality.

Koonin argues that CRISPR-Cas systems present the best-known case in point for Lamarckian evolution because they satisfy his proposed criteria for the specific inheritance of acquired adaptive characteristics. We see two interrelated issues with Koonin’s characterization of CRISPR-Cas systems as Lamarckian. First, at times he appears to confuse an account of the CRISPR-Cas system with an account of the mechanism it employs. We argue there is no evidence for the CRISPR-Cas system being “Lamarckian” in any sense. Second, it is unclear (...) whether the mechanism is more “Lamarckian” than many other forms of genetic change already well-characterized in Darwinian terms. We present three conceptually distinct senses in which the mechanism of IAC may be considered Lamarckian and argue that only the strongest sense of goal-directed IAC would be difficult to accommodate in a Darwinian account. As the CRISPR-Cas mechanism does not qualify as “Lamarckian” in this strong sense, we argue there is no conceptual value in calling it “Lamarckian”. Finally, we suggest that CRISPR-Cas systems do hold the potential for genuinely non-Darwinian, directed evolution in a way that Koonin did not discuss, involving their potential use as a human gene-editing tool. (shrink)

Organizations are increasingly looking for ways to reap the benefits of cognitive diversity for problem solving. A major unanswered question concerns the implications of cognitive diversity for longer-term outcomes such as team learning, with its broader effects on organizational learning and productivity. We study how cognitive style diversity in teams—or diversity in the way that team members encode, organize and process information—indirectly influences team learning through collective intelligence, or the general ability of a team to work together across a wide (...) array of tasks. Synthesizing several perspectives, we predict and find that cognitive style diversity has a curvilinear—inverted U-shaped—relationship with collective intelligence. Collective intelligence is further positively related to the rate at which teams learn, and is a mechanism guiding the indirect relationship between cognitive style diversity and team learning. We test the predictions in 98 teams using ten rounds of the minimum-effort tacit coordination game. Overall, this research advances our understanding of the implications of cognitive diversity for organizations and why some teams demonstrate high levels of team learning in dynamic situations while others do not. (shrink)

A comment on “Editorial 37” Content Type Journal Article Pages 93-95 DOI 10.1007/s10698-011-9110-4 Authors Brian T. Sutcliffe, Laboratoire de Chimie quantique et Photophysique, Université Libre de Bruxelles, B-1050 Bruxelles, Belgium R. Guy Woolley, School of Biomedical and Natural Sciences, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, NG11 8NS UK Journal Foundations of Chemistry Online ISSN 1572-8463 Print ISSN 1386-4238 Journal Volume Volume 13 Journal Issue Volume 13, Number 2.

In this study, we ask whether consensus testimony affects children’s judgments of the possibility of improbable and impossible events. Fifty-six U.S. and Chinese 8-year-olds made possibility judgments before and after hearing three speakers affirm or deny the possibility of improbable and impossible events. Results indicated that whereas both U.S. and Chinese children altered their judgments in the direction of the consensus testimony, this effect was stronger for Chinese children. U.S. children were particularly receptive to consensus for improbable events and when (...) the consensus provided correct information, whereas Chinese children were similarly willing to change their judgment regardless of event type and the validity of the testimony. We propose that the extent of the influence of testimony on possibility judgments varies based on cultural setting. Our findings have potential applications for domains that require evaluation of counterintuitive claims, like religious and scientific education. (shrink)

Prior research has not found a meaningful relationship between digital piracy and moral development, possibly because students do not recognize digital piracy as a moral issue. Rather than measure moral development as an individual characteristic, this study tests which components of moral development are seen as relevant to digital piracy. If some of the stages of moral development are applicable to music piracy behavior, people are more likely to pirate than to engage in other more morally intense behaviors. Some of (...) the stages of moral development are found to be associated with moral development. Proximity to the victim reduces the acceptability of music piracy. (shrink)

There is growing interest in the processes by which entrepreneurial opportunities are cocreated between entrepreneurs and their stakeholders. The longitudinal case study of de novo firm Wakefield Seafoods seeks to understand the underlying dynamics of phenomena that play out over time as stakeholders emerge and their contributions become essential to the opportunity formation process. The king crab data show that under conditions of uncertainty, characterized by incomplete or missing knowledge, entrepreneurial processes of experimentation, failure, and learning were effective in forming (...) and exploiting an opportunity. Moreover, contrary to existing literature that either emphasizes heroic entrepreneurs or downplays their value, this article shows that both the vision of the entrepreneur and the stakeholder contributions are critical. This detailed examination of process data shows that the cumulative actions made by entrepreneurs in concert with their stakeholders formed an opportunity that coalesced into a new market. (shrink)

Management of effort is one of the biggest challenges in any team, and is particularly difficult in distributed teams, where behavior is relatively invisible to teammates. Awareness systems, which provide real-time visual feedback about team members’ behavior, may serve as an effective intervention tool for mitigating various sources of process-loss in teams, including team effort. However, most of the research on visualization tools has been focusing on team communication and learning, and their impact on team effort and consequently team performance (...) has been hardly studied. Furthermore, this line of research has rarely addressed the way visualization tool may interact with team composition, while comprehension of this interaction may facilitate a conceptualization of more effective interventions. In this article we review the research on feedback in distributed teams and integrate it with the research on awareness systems. Focusing on team effort, we examine the effect of an effort visualization tool on team performance in 72 geographically distributed virtual project teams. In addition, we test the moderating effect of team composition, specifically team members’ conscientiousness, on the effectiveness of the effort visualization tool. Our findings demonstrate that the effort visualization tool increases team effort and improves the performance in teams with a low proportion of highly conscientious members, but not in teams with a high proportion of highly conscientious members. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings, and suggest the need of future research to address the way technological advances may contribute to management and research of team processes. (shrink)

This article is currently available as a free download on ingentaconnect.

Despite its explanatory clout, the theory of evolution has thus far compiled a modest record with respect to predictive power—that other major hallmark of scientific theories. This is considered by many to be an acceptable limitation of a theory that deals with events and processes that are intrinsically random. However, whether this is an inherent restriction or simply the sign of an incomplete theory is an open question. In an attempt to help answer that question, we propose a classification scheme (...) for several types of prediction that might occur with regard to evolutionary systems, then explore the nature of these predictions in a system that simulates the evolution of neural architectures. This provides a platform from which to consider the relevance of such observations for real biological systems and illuminates a variety of key issues pertaining to prediction in those environments. (shrink)

As the recent inaugural Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues 2.0 conference made clear, the effects of information communication technology are pervasive in biomedical research. Data initiatives are arising in all corners of biomedicine. Data sharing efforts already promised to surpass even the ambitious goals of the National Human Genome Research Institute, only 5 years after publication of its 10-year vision. ELSI research was established, in part, to address challenges of open data access and data sharing. However, by and large, ELSI (...) research projects address particular concerns of a given population, jurisdiction, type of research practice or type of data. This does not necessarily facilitate coherent data policy for sustainable data stewardship. Forward-looking, data friendly strategies need to be considered. Orchestration strategies are needed which overcome barriers to collective action. Here we present challenges policymakers face, and suggest three basics steps towards meeting them. First, policymakers must recognise the systematic change that occurs when ICT enables dataflow itself to become an organising principle of biomedical research. Second, methods for identifying and gathering types of metadata suitable for ELSI research ought to be developed and regulated. Third, policymakers need to organise in ways that mirror the new vision for data-enabled research that data technologies are making possible, as ELSI 2.0 encourages researchers to do. Taking these steps will help ensure research evolves in ways that warrants trust of the public while still supporting widespread ethical access to necessary data, research subjects, samples and findings. (shrink)

Social acceptance is assumed to have widespread positive effects on the recipient; however, ethnic/racial minorities often react negatively to social acceptance by White individuals. One possibility for such reactions might be their lack of trust in the genuineness of White individuals’ positive evaluations. Here, we examined the role that oxytocin—a neuropeptide putatively linked to social processes—plays in modulating reactions to acceptance or rejection during interracial interactions. Black participants received intranasal oxytocin or placebo and interacted with a White, same-sex stranger who (...) provided positive or negative social feedback. After positive feedback, participants given oxytocin tended to display approach-oriented cardiovascular responses of challenge, exhibited more cooperative behavior, and perceived the partner to have more favorable attitudes toward them after the interaction. Following negative feedback, oxytocin reduced anger suppression. Oxytocin did not modulate testosterone reactivity directly, but our exploratory analysis showed that the less participants suppressed anger during the interaction with their partner, the greater testosterone reactivity they displayed after the interaction. These results survived the correction for multiple testing with a false discovery rate of 20%, but not with a rate of 10 or 5%. Discussion centers on the interplay between oxytocin and social context in shaping interracial interactions. (shrink)

In recent years, we have experienced rapid development of advanced technology, machine learning, and artificial intelligence (AI), intended to interact with and augment the abilities of humans in practically every area of life. With the rapid growth of new capabilities, such as those enabled by generative AI (e.g., ChatGPT), AI is increasingly at the center of human communication and collaboration, resulting in a growing recognition of the need to understand how humans and AI can integrate their inputs in collaborative teams. (...) However, there are many unanswered questions regarding how human–AI collective intelligence will emerge and what the barriers might be. Truly integrated collaboration between humans and intelligent agents may result in a different way of working that looks nothing like what we know now, and it is important to keep the essential goal of human societal well-being and prosperity a priority. In this special issue, we begin to scope out the underpinnings of a socio-cognitive architecture for Collective HUman-MAchine INtelligence (COHUMAIN), which is the study of the capability of an integrated human and machine (i.e., intelligent technology) system to achieve goals in a wide range of environments. This topic consists of nine papers including a description of the conceptual foundation for a socio-cognitive architecture for COHUMAIN, empirical tests of some aspects of this architecture, research on proposed representations of intelligent agents that can jointly interact with humans, empirical tests of human–human and human–machine interactions, and philosophical and ethical issues to consider as we develop these systems. (shrink)

Children's conceptions of dreams are an important component of their developing understanding of the mind. Although there is much that even adults do not understand about the nature of dreams, most adults in Western society believe that: Dream entities are not real in the sense that they are nonphysical; they are private in the sense that they are not available to public perception, and are not directly shared with other dreamers; and, dreams are typically fictional in content. Thus, children in (...) our society must confront several dualisms with respect to dreams, such as their physical versus nonphysical, perceptually-public versus perceptually-private, and shared versus individuated nature. Thirty-two children, aged 3- and 4-years-old, were told stories about children who were dreaming about an object, playing with an object, or looking at a photograph of an object, and then were asked questions about the status of these entities with regard to these three dualisms. All children judged dream entities, photographs, and physical objects to be appropriately different in terms of physical versus nonphysical properties and in terms of perceptually-public versus private status. They also understood the fictional nature of dreams. However, whereas most 4-year-olds understood that dreams are individuated, many 3-year-olds believed that dreams are directly shared by more than one person. These findings contrast with earlier research characterizing children's understanding of dreams as realistic. We reconcile these contrasting findings by discussing methodological differences, and we situate our findings regarding children's understanding of dreams within the context of contemporary research on children's theory of mind. (shrink)

Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered machines are increasingly mediating our work and many of our managerial, economic, and cultural interactions. While technology enhances individual capability in many ways, how do we know that the sociotechnical system as a whole, consisting of a complex web of hundreds of human–machine interactions, is exhibiting collective intelligence? Research on human–machine interactions has been conducted within different disciplinary silos, resulting in social science models that underestimate technology and vice versa. Bringing together these different perspectives and methods (...) at this juncture is critical. To truly advance our understanding of this important and quickly evolving area, we need vehicles to help research connect across disciplinary boundaries.This paper advocates for establishing an interdisciplinary research domain—Collective Human-Machine Intelligence (COHUMAIN). It outlines a research agenda for a holistic approach to designing and developing the dynamics of sociotechnical systems. In illustrating the kind of approach, we envision in this domain, we describe recent work on a sociocognitive architecture, the transactive systems model of collective intelligence, that articulates the critical processes underlying the emergence and maintenance of collective intelligence and extend it to human–AI systems. We connect this with synergistic work on a compatible cognitive architecture, instance-based learning theory and apply it to the design of AI agents that collaborate with humans. We present this work as a call to researchers working on related questions to not only engage with our proposal but also develop their own sociocognitive architectures and unlock the real potential of human–machine intelligence. (shrink)

Dominant paradigms in science foster integration of research findings, but at what cost? Forcing convergence requires centralizing decision-making authority, and risks reducing the diversity of methods and contributors, both of which are essential for the breakthrough ideas that advance science.

James Klagge aims to shed light on Wittgenstein’s philosophy by situating it in its biographical–cultural context. While Klagge is not alone in pursuing this aim, his claim to originality lies in his thematic focus on Wittgenstein’s relationship to his time and culture as one of “alienation” (3), expressed by the metaphor of being “in exile” (61). A central concern of Klagge’s is how we, as modern readers living in a “civilized” culture not dissimilar to the one from which Wittgenstein felt (...) himself estranged, can hope to understand the philosophical writings of such a radically distant “other.” Klagge’s suggestion is that through acknowledging and engaging with just how different Wittgenstein was, we can .. (shrink)

Much bioethical literature and policy guidances for big data analytics in biomedical research emphasize the importance of trust. It is essential that potential participants trust so they will allow their data to be used to further research. However, comparatively, little guidance is offered as to what trustworthy oversight mechanisms are, or how policy should support them, as data are collected, shared, and used. Generally, “trust” is not characterized well enough, or meaningfully enough, for the term to be systematically applied in (...) policy development. Yet points made in the philosophical literature on trust can help. They allow us, not only to better distinguish the different ways the term “trust” may be interpreted, but also to better determine how different approaches to trust can align with policy and governance—in what ways they may relate to key bioethical concepts and related laws, and in what ways they can help to balance individual and group interests in data sharing. This article draws from the philosophical literature on trust to identify a relationship among consent, trust, and justice. Specifically, parallels are drawn between “character-trustworthiness” and “natural justice,” a set of widely held legal safeguards intended to ensure decision-makers follow a pattern of procedural fairness which protects the rights of the individual and thereby maintains public confidence in the decision-making process. Relevance to traditional bioethical principles, established laws, and consent procedures are addressed throughout. In conclusion, policy actions are suggested. (shrink)

This essay is an attempt to point up the gap between, on the one hand, the methods currently available to the biologist in the laboratory and, on the other, the kind of data that he or she would need in order to characterise genetically engineered proteins of topical biological interest in such a way as to make use of the techniques of protein engineering.

Human engagement with imaginary worlds pervades history (e.g., Paleolithic cave paintings) and development (e.g., 18-month-olds pretend). In providing a safe environment, separate from the real world, fiction offers the opportunity for simulated exploration regardless of external circumstances. Thus, engagement with imaginary worlds in fiction may afford individuals opportunities to reap benefits and transfer these benefits back to the real world.

The financial crisis of 2008 raised the politics of regulation to a new level of practical and scholarly attention. We find that recent reforms in U.S. financial markets hinge on intellectual resources and new organizational actors that are missing from existing concepts of regulatory capture or business power. In particular, small advocacy groups have proven significantly more successful in opposing the financial services industry than existing theories predict. By maintaining the salience of reform goals, elaborating new analytic frameworks, and deploying (...) specialized expertise in post-enactment debates, smaller organizations have contributed to a diffuse but often decisive network of pro-reform actors. Through the rule-writing process for macroprudential supervision and derivatives trading, these small organizations coalesced with other groups to form a new stability alliance that has so far prevented industry groups from dominating financial regulation to the degree that occurred in earlier cases of regulatory reform. (shrink)

Alice Woolley reviews Crime and Guilt by Ferdinand von Schirach.

Legal ethics theory focuses on the moral problem of lawyers pursuing morally suspect (but lawful) ends and using morally suspect (but lawful) means. It considers possible justifications for lawyers' conduct arising from moral or political philosophy, and how those justifications may require shifts in the lawyer's role. This paper argues that legal ethics theory needs to expand its focus to consider other ethical aspects of the lawyer's role and, in particular, the extent to which being a lawyer can complicate, or (...) contribute to, the accomplishment of a meaningful life. Meaning—defined by Susan Wolf as 'loving something (or a number of things) worth of love, and being able to engage with it (or them) in a positive way'—will be affected in positive and negative ways by the moral dimensions of the lawyer's role, but also by broader aspects of legal practice. The paper further argues that legal ethics theory needs to be more sensitive to contextual variations in legal practice. The ethical challenges and opportunities of legal practice, both its meaning and its morality, are contextually specific in ways legal ethics theory has not sufficiently accounted for. The paper discusses how meaning and context can be included in analysis of the ethics of a lawyer's life. (shrink)

Volume 21, Issue 2, December 2018, Page 159-162.

This article deals with the prospect of genetically enhancing intelligence. We identify and contrast social attitudes (disapproval) to the use of future genetic technology with social attitudes (approval) for environmental methods of enhancing intelligence. Using various forms of the argument that the means by which enhancement is achieved has moral significance, we look for differences that could justify the different attitudes. We find that the different attitudes cannot be ethically justified. We predict that the lack of ethical justification for distinguishing (...) between means of enhancement is likely to result in the eventual acceptance of genetic enhancement of intelligence. (shrink)

This article is currently available as a free download on ingentaconnect.

In a corporate context, would interrupting affect the perceived power, identity traits, job performance, and interpersonal relationships of equally situated male and female speakers? The gender of both the interrupter and the interrupted speaker was varied in hypothetical transcripts of conversations between two corporate vice-presidents. There were no significant effects of interrupting or being interrupted on perceptions of the relative power of men and women speakers. However, the interrupter, regardless of gender, was perceived as more successful and driving, but less (...) socially acceptable, reliable, and companionable than the interrupted speaker. (shrink)

The title incorporates the assumption that the 'human' in education is being threatened by certain processes. The guiding questions are: What are these processes and what constitutes the 'human' in education? Which activities characteristically performed by human beings are so central that they seem definitive of a life that is truly human and which changes or transitions in educational thinking are compatible with the continued existence of a being as a member of human kind and which are not? It is (...) argued that the present debate on education is still dominated by the language of performance and global economic comparison. Educational practice must and will have to help the individual through a confluence of insights in his/her journey through life to form independent judgement. (shrink)

Gordon Kaufman's “constructive theology” can easily be taken out of context and misunderstood or misrepresented as a denial of God. It is too easily overlooked that in his approach everything is an imaginary construct given no immediate ontological status—the self, the world, and God are “products of the imagination.” This reflects an influence, not only of theories on linguistic and cultural relativism, but also of Kant's “ideas of pure reason.” Kaufman is explicit about this debt to Kant. But I argue (...) there are other aspects of Kant's legacy implicit in his method. These center around Kaufman's engagement with “observed patterns” in nature. With Paul Tillich's aid, I bring this neglected issue to the fore and argue that addressing it allows one to more readily capitalize upon the Kantian influence in Kaufman's method. This, in turn, encourages one to tap more deeply into the epistemic underpinnings of Kaufman's approach to the science–religion dialogue. (shrink)

This article examines the ways in which villainous characters are portrayed in post-classical American films, and examines how these characters are viewed by the cinematic audience in order to ascertain the degree to which the socially and morally understood roles or heroism and villainy might be inverted through cinematic representation. The potential for the inversion of perceived good and evil in the characters that inhabit the films discussed is considered in relation to the aligning and allying capacity of cinema. This (...) work also considers the impact of stars in villainous roles and the significance of generic conventions in rendering the villain apparently inert to a viewing audience. Through considering the formal presentation of characters and scenarios, this work suggests that villainous deeds can be perceived as unthreatening, and even 'moral' to an extent. The purpose of this article is to form an understanding of how audiences engage with iniquitous characters, and to consider the potential spectatorial implications of such a bond. (shrink)