Sex and sensibility: The role of social selection Content Type Journal Article DOI 10.1007/s11016-010-9464-6 Authors Erika L. Milam, Department of History, University of Maryland, 2115 Francis Scott Key Hall, College Park, MD 20742, USA Roberta L. Millstein, Department of Philosophy, University of California, Davis, One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616, USA Angela Potochnik, Department of Philosophy, University of Cincinnati, P.O. Box 210374, Cincinnati, OH 45221, USA Joan E. Roughgarden, Department of Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-5020, USA Journal Metascience (...) Online ISSN 1467-9981 Print ISSN 0815-0796. (shrink)

A two-stage procedure is described which induces type-logical grammar lexicons from sentences annotated with skeletal terms of the simply typed lambda calculus. First, a generalized formulae-as-types correspondence is exploited to obtain all the type-logical proofs of the sample sentences from their lambda terms. The resulting lexicons are then optimally unified. The first stage constitutes the semantic bootstrapping (Pinker, Language Learnability and Language Development, Harvard University Press, 1984), while the unification procedure of Buszkowski and Penn represents a first attempt at structure-dependent (...) distributional learning of the syntactic and semantic categories. This effort extends earlier induction procedures (Buszkowski and Penn, 1990, Studia Logica 49, 431–454; Kanazawa, 1998, CSLI Publications and the European Association for Logic, Language and Information) for classical categorial grammar to at first the non-associative Lambek calculus, and then to a large class of type logics enriched by modal operators and structural rules. (shrink)

This article aims to provide an insight into the ecumenical work of a Hungarian Benedictine monk, Gellért Békés. First, I offer a short overview of Békés's life, who was forced into exile by the socialist regime and who spent almost half a century as Professor at the University of Saint Anselm in Rome. Next, I review Békés's publications and the main thrust of his thinking in the field of ecumenical theology. The central part of my article is devoted to the (...) presentation of his Italian monograph (Eucaristia e chiesa, 1985), which can be considered to be his most important work and in which he gives a comprehensive account of his ecumenical theology of the Eucharist, especially in the light of the Lima Document of 1982. His major contribution lies in the fact that he took into account the interrelation between the various ecumenical documents and he integrated the newly retrieved dimensions of the Eucharist. He also commented on the idea of Real Presence developed by the Lima Document in the light of Catholic doctrine. Last but not least, this article wants to contribute to the reception of Békés's thought, which has hardly begun even in his own country. (shrink)

This article reviews a number of different areas in the foundations of formal learning theory. After outlining the general framework for formal models of learning, the Bayesian approach to learning is summarized. This leads to a discussion of Solomonoff's Universal Prior Distribution for Bayesian learning. Gold's model of identification in the limit is also outlined. We next discuss a number of aspects of learning theory raised in contributed papers, related to both computational and representational complexity. The article concludes with a (...) description of how semi-supervised learning can be applied to the study of cognitive learning models. Throughout this overview, the specific points raised by our contributing authors are connected to the models and methods under review. (shrink)

The fourth volume of the Amsterdam edition of the apologias contains the critical edition of the Latin text of the apologia against the English scholar Edward Lee.

A method is described for inducing a type-logical grammar from a sample of bare sentence trees which are annotated by lambda terms, called term-labelled trees . Any type logic from a permitted class of multimodal logics may be specified for use with the procedure, which induces the lexicon of the grammar including the grammatical categories. A first stage of semantic bootstrapping is performed, which induces a general form lexicon from the sample of term-labelled trees using Fulop’s (J Log Lang Inf (...) 14(1):49–86, 2005) procedure. Next we present a two-stage procedure for performing distributional learning by unifying the lexical types that are initially discovered. The first structural unification algorithm in essence unifies the initial family of sets of types so that the resulting grammar will generate all term-labelled trees that follow the usage patterns evident from the learning sample. Further altering the lexical categories to generate a recursively extended language can be accomplished by a second unification. The combined unification algorithm is shown to yield a new type-logical lexicon that extends the learning sample to a possibly infinite (and possibly context-sensitive) language in a principled fashion. Finally, the complete learning strategy is analyzed from the perspective of algorithmic learning theory; the range of the procedure is shown to be a class of term-labelled tree languages which is finitely learnable from good examples (Lange et al in Algorithmic learning theory, Vol 872 of lecture notes in artificial intelligence, Springer, Berlin, pp 423–437), and so is identifiable in the limit as a corollary. (shrink)

Previous research has established that the success of strikes, and social movements more broadly, depends on their ability to garner support from the public. However, there is scant published research investigating the response of the public to strike action by healthcare workers. In this study, we address this gap through a study of public responses to UK nursing strikes in 2022–2023, using a data set drawn from Twitter of more than 2300 publicly available tweets. We focus on negative tweets, investigating (...) which societal discourses social media users draw on to oppose strike action by nurses. Using a combination of corpus‐based approaches and discourse analysis, we identified five categories of opposition: (i) discourse discrediting nurses; (ii) discourse discrediting strikes by nurses; (iii) discourse on the National Health System; (iv) discourse about the fairness of strikers' demands and (v) discourse about potential harmful impact. Our findings show how social media users operationalise wider societal discourses about the nursing profession (e.g., associations with care, gender, vocation and sacrifice) as well as recent crises such as the Covid‐19 pandemic to justify their opposition. The results also provide valuable insights into misconceptions about nursing, strike action and patient harm, which can inform strategies for public communication. (shrink)

Existing whistle-blowing models rely on “cold” economic calculations and cost-benefit analyses to explain the judgments and actions of potential whistle-blowers. I argue that “hot” cognitions – value conflict and emotions – should be added to these models. I propose a model of the whistle-blowing decision process that highlights the reciprocal influence of “hot” and “cold” cognitions and advocate research that explores how value conflict and emotions inform reporting decisions. I draw on the cognitive appraisal approach to emotions and on the (...) social-functional value pluralism model to generate propositions. (shrink)

​Wie ist das diskursfähige Subjekt im Sinne Habermas zu denken? Unter welchen Bedingungen und Modalitäten entwickelt das Subjekt seine Diskursfähigkeit? Erika Edelmayer arbeitet die Denkfigur des diskursfähigen Subjekts aus der Grundlegung der soziologischen Theorie als „Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns“ heraus. Sie untersucht, was Diskursfähigkeit im Rahmen einer deliberativ verstandenen Demokratie bedeutet und zeigt die Konsequenzen auf, die sich daraus für die Pädagogik ergeben.

This essay argues that a failure to think and talk critically and candidly about White privilege and White poverty is a key threat to the United States of America's precarious democracy. Whiteness frames one of America's most pressing collective challenges—the poor state of the nation's health, which lags behind other wealthy nations and is marred by deep and entrenched class‐ and race‐based inequities. The broadscale remedies experts recommend demand what is in short supply: trust in evidence, experts, government, and one (...) another. The authors’ prescription is threefold, beginning with a call for intersectional health studies and reports that avoid one‐dimensional misrepresentations of widespread health problems as simply Black or White problems. Second, there is the need for a “critical consciousness” about race and class. Lastly, the essay calls for widescale opportunities for Americans to engage in cross‐racial and cross‐class democratic conversations about their struggles and aspirations in search of common ground. (shrink)

At a time when there is a health care crisis in the United States, there is widespread appeal to religious healing of various types. Adequate research in this area is limited.Terms such as "ecstasy" are used inconsistently, limiting the usefulness of the term, producing confusion rather than understanding. A cross‐cultural comparative perspective is offered.

Abstract:Many scientists argue that the world is becoming increasingly dominated by human activity, much to the detriment of the natural world. In what scholars have dubbed the Anthropocene, the current geological epoch during which time human activity has been the dominating force over climate and the environment, many questions of environmental ethics have arisen. Who does the earth belong to? What is the relationship between humans and the environment? What is the moral standing of non-human life? Locke and Rousseau provide (...) varying answers to these questions, which are central to discussions of environmental ethics. In many ways, Locke and Rousseau's answers are opposed to each other, suggesting a differing world view when it comes to environmental ethics. Locke's understanding of environmental ethics seems to dominate, and perhaps even cause, the onset of the Anthropocene, but Rousseau's response, and a potential turn toward his understanding of environmental ethics marks an ideological shift in the way that humans understand their relationship with the world around them. This paper argues that the writings of Locke and Rousseau correspond to different stages of the Anthropocene with significant effects on both environmental ethics and environmental governance and policy. (shrink)

In this reply, we wish to defend our original position and address several of the points raised by two excellent responses. The first response (De Miguel Beriain) questions the relevance of the notion of ‘serious’ within the context of human germline genome modification (HGGM). We argue that the ‘serious’ factor is relevant and that there is a need for medical and social lenses to delineate the limits of acceptability and initial permissible applications of HGGM. In this way, ‘serious’ acts as (...) a starting point for further discussions and debates on the acceptability of the potential clinical translation of HGGM. Therefore, there is a pressing need to clarify its scope, from a regulatory perspective, so as to prevent individuals from using HGGM for non-therapeutic or enhancement purposes. The second response (Kalsi) criticizes the narrow interpretation of the objectivist approach and the apparent bias towards material innovations when discussing the right to benefit from scientific advancements. As an in-depth discussion of the objectivist and constructivist approaches was beyond the scope of our original paper, we chose to focus on one specific objectivist account, one which focuses on biological and scientific facts. We agree, however, with the critique that material innovations should not be the sole focus of the right to benefit from scientific advancements, which also incorporates freedom of scientific research and access to scientific knowledge scientific freedom and knowledge, including the influence of these on ethical thinking and cultures. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic’s disproportionate harm to racialized communities and increased public attention to the deaths of Black people at the hands of police (Elijah McClain, Breonna Taylor, George F...

Current advances in assisted reproductive technologies aim to promote the health and well-being of future children. They offer the possibility to select embryos with the greatest potential of being born healthy (eg, preimplantation genetic testing) and may someday correct faulty genes responsible for heritable diseases in the embryo (eg, human germline genome modification (HGGM)). Most laws and policy statements surrounding HGGM refer to the notion of ‘serious’ as a core criterion in determining what genetic diseases should be targeted by these (...) technologies. Yet, this notion remains vague and poorly defined, rendering its application challenging and decision making subjective and arbitrary. By way of background, we begin by briefly presenting two conceptual approaches to ‘health’ and ‘disease’: objectivism (ie, based on biological facts) and constructivism (ie, based on human values). The basic challenge under both is sorting out whether and to what extent social and environmental factors have a role in helping to define what qualifies as a ‘serious’ disease beyond the medical criteria. We then focus on how a human rights framework (eg, right to science and right to the highest attainable health) could integrate the concepts of objectivism and constructivism so as to provide guidance for a more actionable consideration of ‘serious’. Ultimately, it could be argued that a human rights framework, by way of its legally binding nature and its globally accepted norms and values, provides a more universal foundation for discussions of the ethical, legal and social implications of emerging or disruptive technologies. (shrink)

Editorial introduction to the Special Issue by Erika Goble, editor.

This paper focuses on Confucian formulations of personhood and the implications they may have for bioethics and medical practice. We discuss how an appreciation of the Confucian concept of personhood can provide insights into the practice of informed consent and, in particular, the role of family members and physicians in medical decision-making in societies influenced by Confucian culture. We suggest that Western notions of informed consent appear ethically misguided when viewed from a Confucian perspective.

An absolute decline in US life expectancy in low education whites has alarmed policy makers and attracted media attention. Depending on which studies are correct, low education white women have lost between 3 and 5 years of lifespan; men, between 6 months and 3 years. Although absolute declines in life expectancy are relatively rare, some commentators see the public alarm as reflecting a racist concern for white lives over black ones. How ought we ethically to evaluate this lifespan contraction in (...) low education whites? Should we care, or is it racist to care? Does it constitute an injustice or reflect justice being done? I argue that the lifespan contraction in low education whites violates key normative criteria used to make determinations of health justice, and that these judgments do not vitiate concerns about racism. I conclude with reflections on US population health policy and building an inclusive health equity movement. (shrink)

The paper investigates various definitions of the concept of opinion as opposed to factual or evidence-based statements and proposes a taxonomy of opinions expressed in English as identified in selected social media. A discussion situates opinions in the realm of pragmatics and reaches to philosophy of language and cognitive science. The research methodology combines a thorough linguistic analysis of opinions, proposing their multifaceted taxonomy with the automatically generated lexical embeddings of positive and negative lexicon acquired from the analysed opinionated texts. (...) As proposed, the definition of the concept of opinion is best apprehended when looked upon in terms of an opinion event, with a number of necessary conditions on the one hand, and those that are characteristic of an explicit opinion prototype on the other. Lists of opinion discourse markers show their preferential uses either in positive or negative opinionated texts; however, no sets of necessary and/or sufficient opinion markers properties have been acquired from the analysed texts. The conclusions indicate a polysemous understanding of naturally occurring social media opinionated texts and a definitional flexibility of the boundaries around lexical positive and negative types of opinion markers. (shrink)

This book deals with the impact of the Reformation debate in Germany on the most prominent intellectual movement of the time: humanism Although it is true that humanism influenced the course of the Reformation, says Erika Rummel, the dynamics of the relationship are better described by saying that humanism was co-opted, perhaps even exploited, in the religious debate.

Although there have been a growing number of studies focusing on dog welfare, the research field concerning dog positive emotion assessment remains mostly unexplored. This paper aims to provide a state-of-the-art review and summary of the scattered and disperse research on dog positive emotion assessment. The review notably details the current advancement in the dog positive emotion research, what approaches, measures, methods, and techniques have been implemented so far in emotion perception, processing, and response assessment. Moreover, we propose possible future (...) research directions for short-term emotion as well as longer-term emotional states assessment in dogs. The review ends by identifying and addressing some methodological limitations and by pointing out further methodological research needs. (shrink)

A debate over the possibilities for foundations of knowledge has been a key feature of theoretical discussions in the discipline of International Relations. A number of recent contributions suggest that this debate is still active. This article offers a contribution to this debate by suggesting that the study of complexity may provide a contingent foundation for the study of international relations. We examine the grounds on which such a claim might be made, and examine the implications for taking complexity as (...) a foundational claim. (shrink)

This article uses music and the discourse about music to understand the practice of tolerance in Prague during the period immediately preceding the outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War. Drawing on Las ensaladas, a collection of vernacular polyphony compiled by the Spanish composer Mateo Flecha the Younger, and Harmoniae morales, comprising musical settings of Latin texts by the Slovenian composer Jacobus Handl, the article argues that such music offered Prague's diverse citizens a medium for reflecting on how to live morally (...) and peaceably. Ultimately, this article challenges the commonplace that musical harmony offered an effective model for social harmony, arguing that the practice of singing together exposed the limits of tolerance even as it illuminated how difference might be accommodated. (shrink)

The aim of this article is twofold. Firstly, it explicates Simone de Beauvoir’s views on literature as a means of communication. Secondly, it draws from her theoretical framework to illuminate the discussion on mortality and death in a poem by an ancient Greek woman epigrammatist, Anyte. These two goals are combined by the fact that for Beauvoir one of the most important tasks of literature was to break down the solitude of human existence by sharing the most intimate and painful (...) experiences, such as the death of our loved ones. I will argue that Beauvoir’s insights help us understand literature and its most profound, communicative dimension. On the other hand, taking the Beauvoirian framework to a field unknown to it before will elucidate its potential as a tool for literary analysis. Finally, the dialogue the article establishes between two women authors, Beauvoir and Anyte, will provide us with a more detailed understanding of the meaning of death in human existence and in literary communication. (shrink)

Our aim was to identify the ethical issues faced by students in the behavioral and natural sciences during their doctoral programmes. The participants were 28 PhD students who were interviewed about their doctoral study and supervision experiences. We identified a total of 102 ethical issues compromising the principles of nonmaleficence, beneficence, autonomy, justice, or fidelity. There were some differences in emphases, with the students in the behavioral sciences displaying a broader range of ethical compromises than the students in the natural (...) sciences. Ethical problems emerged in the individual supervisor–student relationships, but often problems involving the scholarly community appeared in the background. (shrink)

Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Volume 45, Issue 1-2, Page 164-188, June 2022.

Women and men are biologically and reproductively dissimilar. This sexual distinctiveness gives rise to a “sexual asymmetry”—the fundamental reality that the potential consequences of sexual intercourse are far more immediate and serious for women than for men. Advocates of contraception and abortion sought to cure sexual asymmetry by decoupling sex from procreation, relieving women from the consequences of sex, and thus equalizing the sexual experiences of men and women. But efforts to suppress or reject biological difference have not relieved women (...) of the consequences of sex and the vulnerabilities of pregnancy, even as they have further relieved men. Although secular feminist responses to biological difference have served to exacerbate sexual asymmetry, Catholic teaching on abortion, sex, and marriage—even contraception—provides an authentically pro-woman cultural response. (shrink)

Childhood obesity may have severe long‐term consequences for health—indeed, for the overall course of a person's life. Do these harms amount to a problem of social justice? And if so, what should be done about it? Parents are usually granted considerable leeway to make decisions that affect their children's health. Social and moral theory has often overlooked the family, however, leaving us with an inadequateunderstanding of parental autonomy and of how social policy may influence it.

Patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) face many difficult, timing-sensitive decisions over the course of their illness, weighing present versus future harms and benefits. Supplemented by interviews with people with ALS, we argue for a relational approach to understanding these decisions and their effects on identity. We highlight two critical aspects of the patient–caregiver relationship: (1) the extent to which each may rely on the other leaves their wellbeing intimately intertwined and (2) patients often require others to help with the (...) imaginative task of considering possible futures for each therapeutic option. We show why family involvement in decisionmaking practices can be so critical, and shed light on the ways intimate others help preserve and protect people’s identities amidst the destabilizing uncertainty illness and treatment can bring. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to investigate the consequences of the use of text-matching software on teachers’ and students’ conceptions of plagiarism and problems in academic writing. An electronic questionnaire included scale items, structured questions, and open-ended questions. The respondents were 85 teachers and 506 students in a large Finnish university. Methods of analysis included exploratory factor analysis, t-test, and inductive content analysis. Both teachers and students reported increased awareness of plagiarism and improvements in writing habits, as well as (...) concerns and limitations related to the system. The results suggest that teachers are inclined to think of plagiarism as part of a learning process rather an issue of morality, which may have consequences for how they understand the role of text matching. The introduction of text-matching software has supported teachers’ work, but at the same time teachers emphasized their own responsibility in detecting problems in student writing. The survey provides a limited sample of “Case Finland,” where implementation of text-matching software nationwide has been remarkably rapid; it offers a glimpse into one institution’s implementation of a newly introduced policy for mandatory plagiarism detection. (shrink)

Intraspecific niche variation can differentially impact community processes and can represent the initial stages of adaptive radiation. Here we test for intraspecific differences in niche use in a keystone species, the alewife (Alosa pseudoharengus). To test whether feedbacks between predator foraging traits and prey communities have led to differences in niche use, we compare the diet composition and trophic position of anadromous and landlocked alewife populations. These populations differ in phenotypic traits related to foraging (gill raker spacing, gape width, and (...) prey selectivity). Trait differences appear to have resulted from eco-evolutionary feedbacks between alewives and their zooplankton prey, and suggest that these two life history forms are exploiting different niches. Direct diets show that anadromous alewives consume a greater biomass of predatory copepods than do landlocked alewives. Anadromous alewives also consume more ostracods—a littoral prey item—as the growing season progresses. These diet differences do not translate into a significant difference in trophic position, as estimated from stable isotopes. However, stable-isotope estimates of diet source show that during early fall, anadromous alewives obtain significantly more of their dietary carbon from the littoral food web. This increased reliance on littoral prey is likely a result of a diet switch that occurs in response to the alewife-driven exhaustion of large-bodied prey items available in the pelagic zone, i.e., alewife niche construction. These findings show the existence of important intraspecific niche differences in the alewife and support the role of eco-evolutionary feedbacks in shaping these niche differences. The initiation of alewife divergence is the result of dam building by humans. Therefore, alewife niche differentiation can be considered to be an eco-evolutionary byproduct of human cultural niche construction. (shrink)

Through qualitative surveys, a team of law students, law professors, physicians, and residents explored the perceptions of neurology residents towards referral to appropriate legal resources in an academic training program. Respondents reported feeling uncomfortable screening their patients for health-harming legal needs, which many attributed to a lack of training in this area. These findings indicate that neurology residents would benefit from training on screening for social factors that may be impacting their patients’ health.